


hands like an ocean

by misprinting



Series: will you lay a trap for me? [1]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexuality, Consent Issues, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, jon favreau/emily, lovett/ira, lovett/tim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-06-14 02:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15379062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misprinting/pseuds/misprinting
Summary: The first time Lovett has sex is a huge disappointment.





	1. before

**Author's Note:**

> Fellow ace friends, please be wary of this one. Check the end notes or message me @misprinting on twitter (locked, but I'll add you if you don't seem like a bot) or tumblr if you need more info.
> 
> Title is from _Issues_ by Julia Michaels. The full line is _hands like an ocean: push you out, pull you back in_ , which is pretty emblematic.

**_freshman year_ **

The first time Lovett has sex is a huge disappointment.

He’d thought it’d be this perfect moment where all the shit he went through being closeted and then coming out over and over again would be worth it once he finally had sex. Or that it’d at least be fun.

It’s not quite how it works out.

He finishes up with the guy and collects his clothes, getting out pretty much as quickly as he can. They’d been dancing round each other for most of the night and he can see out of the bathroom window that the sun is rising as he pulls his socks back on. Compulsively, he turns on the cold tap, cups his hands under it, and rinses his mouth three, four times, but can still taste the guy’s tongue in his mouth. He looks contemplatively at the toothbrushes next to the mirror and wonders how low he wants to go in the name of surviving casual sex tonight, but decides that’s too far. Instead, he rinses his mouth again with a little bit of toothpaste to help.

It doesn’t.

The guy is sitting at his kitchen table with — presumably — a roommate as Lovett exits, and he offers Lovett a casual wave and asks, “hey, got places to be?”

Lovett forces a grin, shrugging as he says, “don’t want to draw out the awkward morning after any longer than absolutely necessary.” The roommate reacts the way a normal person would to that level of social incompetence, eyes widening slightly and clearly trying to get the guy’s attention to laugh at Lovett with him, but the guy just breaks into laughter with Lovett as though he’s charmed.

Lovett sees his jacket is on the back of the guy’s chair and seriously considers forgetting it for a second. That option is taken from him almost as soon as he thinks it, though, because the guy is out of his chair and bringing it over to him.

“Oh, thanks,” Lovett says, reaching for it, but the guy holds it up like he wants Lovett to step into it. On autopilot, Lovett does. He shivers at the feeling of hands smoothing the arms of his jacket down, one coming to rest at the small of Lovett’s back as he’s gently led towards the door.

 _Creep_ , Lovett thinks. He doesn’t all-the-way mean it. The hand is big, spanning a lot of his lower back, and a big part of Lovett likes it; likes how possessive it feels. Another part isn’t going to feel steady until he’s had a shower.

Once they’re out of the kitchen and standing in the partly open apartment doorway, the guy drops his hand from Lovett’s back only to pull him in by the lapel of his jacket, stopping just short of kissing him. His hand lands on Lovett’s jaw and he thumbs at Lovett’s bottom lip.

Lovett’s stomach has bottomed out. He also can’t take his eyes off the guys’ mouth, because he looks like a ken doll and his lips are actual sin to look at. He’d been an indredible kisser, too. Lovett doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

“Can I…?” the guy asks, using his thumb to part Lovett’s lips just enough so Lovett can’t stop the embarrassing squeek that comes out, and he finally thinks, _oh, fuck it_ , and leans forward to press his lips to this guy’s perfect ones again. He makes a soft, approving sound into Lovett’s mouth, but they seem to be on the same page on one thing, at least, because their kiss stays fairly chaste.

Another minute or so passes before Lovett reminds himself of the feel of his guy’s tongue in his mouth and breaks off the kiss maybe a bit too suddenly to be casual. The guy’s eyes open. He seems a little surprised, but a smile spreads across his lips as he cups Lovett’s face in both his hands and pulls him in for one quick, chaste press of lips. He pulls back, resting his arms on Lovett’s shoulders so they’re still stood close. So there’s no really polite way to pull away.

Lovett suddenly can’t meet him in the eyes, clearing his throat.

“Hey, Lovett?” the guy asks, and shit but that means Lovett’s a dick for not remembering this guy’s name. It’s half-formed somewhere in his brain in that way that means Lovett’ll recognise it the second he hears it again. But for the moment he’s drawing a complete blank, watching his smiling, beautiful face. He’s probably the most beautiful person Lovett’s ever seen in real life. _It must be karma_ , he thinks — someone this beautiful is too perfect for Lovett to have _good_ sex with.

Lovett meets the guy’s eyes and forces himself to smile back, watching a small, impossible frown line appear between the guy’s eyebrows as he does so.

“I had a really good time,” the guy says, and then adds, “and I really hope you did too. Even though all evidence I have so far suggests otherwise.” His smile says he’s teasing — joking — but Lovett’s not sure the steady look in his (striking, almost unsettling) eyes agrees. He wishes he knew this guy better so he could tell, and also wishes he could be gone already because this is a stress on his nerves he’d like to disappear from, please.

The guy continues, saying, “I’d really like to see you again.”

Lovett’s face must give away how torn he feels — on the one hand: beautiful guy, way out of his league, who wants to see him again. On the other: horrible sex — because the guy pulls back further, leaving his hands gently holding onto Lovett’s arms.

“You had a good time, right?” the guy says, and Lovett has enough practice with people in moments of stress (himself; Tommy; his mom) to recognise what heavily veiled panic does to a voice.

Lovett forces himself to say, “yeah, no, of course,” in what he’s hoping is going to be a firm, confident voice, though sadly it isn’t. The guy’s face closes off a little, and, though he looks a little more steady than he did a second before, he still looks way more vulnerable than Lovett likes to be around by choice. Lovett pulls away and says, “You were great, it’s just, it’s me-” and he’s thinking, _how has this turned into a break up_ as the guy folds his arms across his chest and raises a perfect, beautiful eyebrow in scepticism. “I just don’t think I’m a casual sex guy.”

The guy’s face twists into an expression which is almost ugly — almost — for a split second, but then evens out as he offers a tentative smile, reaching out. “Well, there’s an easy solution. Let’s make it not casual.”

Lovett laughs, once, bitterly, and instantly hates himself for the way it visibly makes this guy flinch, even as Lovett opens his mouth and the words “I don’t even remember your name, pal,” come pouring out of his cesspool brain.

Hurt rises in the guy’s eyes and his frown deepens. Lovett fancifully thinks what this guy’ll look like in a few years: still beautiful, but with such an expressive face he’ll have laughter and frown lines and _fuck, why did the sex have to be bad?_ Because Lovett could really like this guy, he thinks. He could maybe have tried to, at least.

“Well, that’s a worst nightmare,” the guy says, smiling in a way which is inviting Lovett to laugh it off with him. “But you could ask.”

Lovett has a bad habit of imagining his whole life with a person when he finds them attractive. Last night, he remembers being a few beers in and the guy flirting back with him and consciously not doing that, for once. He remembers just thinking, _this guy is too handsome to be real_ , and deciding to make the most of it.

Now, he doesn’t say anything. Just looks at the guy’s hands still holding onto him.

The guy’s jaw firms and he pulls himself away and upright, closing off, even as he says, “well, this has been a pleasure.” He leans over Lovett’s shoulder to the door to push it all the way open, then steps back and out of his reach. “See you around, Lovett.”

Lovett pictures himself reaching out, head bowed in contrition as he murmers “sorry”, looking up at the guy through his eyelashes, but doesn’t think that’s who he is or ever will be.

Instead, he turns on his heel and leaves, not looking back.

~~~

He walks across campus, avoiding the eyes of a girl holding her heels in one hand as he leaves the-guy-he’d-slept-with’s block. It’s a warm, beautiful October morning, way earlier than Lovett usually sees, and every time (okay, the two times) he passes someone on their own, clearly in clothes from the night before, a small part of him wants to stop them and ask, “was it less than you wanted, too?”

He makes it back to his block without seeing anyone he knows. He just wants to fall into bed and fade into sleep for the next six hours, at least.

Unfortunately, his roommate is already up. He’s wearing running gear and is currently stretching out — not sweaty yet, so he’s on his way out. Lovett wishes he’d thought to stop off for coffee on his way back and missed this, but. Here they are.

He offers Favs a faint smile, bracing himself for some good natured ribbing, and sees Favs’ eyebrows go up as he looks Lovett over. All while doing a ridiculous stretch that makes Lovett’s back ache just looking at it. 

Lovett turns away, shrugging his jacket off, dropping his shoes on the floor where he takes them off because he knows it’ll piss Favs off and hopefully distract him long enough for Lovett to get into bed. Then he pulls his jeans off and does just that.

He can hear Favs moving around behind him, but stubbornly closes his eyes and ignores him. He feels itchy under the sheets, still wearing boxers and tshirt from the day before, and remembers he’d meant to go shower as soon as he got back.

Well. He’s in bed now, and Favs hasn’t left, still, so that’s where he’s staying.

“Lovett?” Favs says, sounding unsure. “Jon?”

Lovett pulls the sheets up over his head, drawing his knees up closer to his chest. He’s acting like a kid, but fuck it, he doesn’t care anymore. He just wants to sleep and never think about last night again. He wants to not have to deal with Favs’ well-meaning obliviousness.

After a few quiet moments, Favs moves. Lovett hears the door to their room open and shut, then hears him walking down the hall. Lovett lets himself have a moment to bring his hands up to his face and quietly scream into them in frustration, then turns so he’s facing the wall and tells himself, _sleep now; have a breakdown later._

He’s still awake, though, when the door opens again just a couple of minutes later. Lovett distinctly hears the sound of a ringpull and then feels someone Favs sized sit down on Lovett’s bed in the space created by his curled up legs.

Reluctantly, while cursing well-meaning, idiot roommates, Lovett turns over onto his back to find Favs, as he’d thought, holding an open can of Diet Coke so cold the condensation is misting around his fingers. He holds it out to Lovett, waiting patiently as Lovett rolls his eyes before pushing himself and his pillows up so he’s sitting cross-legged in his bed, facing Favs.

He takes the Coke and sips from it.

“Thanks,” he says, begrudingly. “I’m fine. Go on your run.”

“Not until you tell me if I need to get hold of Campus Police,” Favs says, deadly serious. Lovett’s never seen him anything close to serious, so it takes a second to register. So far, in the month and a bit that they’ve known each other, Favs has been affable, mostly, but oblivious; prone to getting so drunk he needs someone to look after him and to laughing at Lovett’s jokes like he doesn’t really get them but wants Lovett to know he likes him. More recently, he’s been trying to match Lovett’s sarcasm with his own, but mostly he seems like he’s not completely sure what to do with him. They don’t have a lot in common, but he’s far from the nightmare Lovett had feared he’d be when he first met him, wearing the fashionable kind of sweatpants and snapback Lovett can never get right. Looking every bit like someone who’d have shoved Lovett into any available hard surface last year. Even if the existence of another Jon in his life had meant Lovett had to go by his last name now, he’s a good guy. Favs’d even taken the gay thing about as well as anyone Lovett’s told.

Lovett’s being the slow one this morning, though, because it takes him a few moments and a few sips of coke to figure out what Favs means, and then he says, “what? No, Jesus, I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Favs asks. “Because it seems like you stayed out all night and came back looking like shit. No offense.”

Lovett halfheartedly tries to kick him but finds he’s too tangled in his sheets and gives up. “Offense taken,” he mumbles, then taps the can in his hand and asks, “where’d you get this? Thought it was going to rot all the bones in my body.”

Favs shrugs. “Borrowed it from the kitchen,” he says, which means he stole it. Lovett feels a little warm from that; he feels his lips involuntarily lift. “I’ll pay it back!” Favs insists, but he’s smiling, too. “C’mon,” he adds. “What happened? Just tell me enough that I know if I should worry about you. Please.”

Lovett shrugs, flipping the ringtop back and forwards until it breaks off into the can. “I went home with a guy,” he says.

“Okay,” Favs agrees, prompting him to go on rather than saying, _yeah, idiot, I’d guessed that part_ , like Lovett would if their positions were reversed.

“We- fucked,” he says, haltingly. “And it wasn’t… I didn’t… I don’t know. It wasn’t good?” He hears himself say it like a question and sees the concern on Favs’ face and cannot bear it, this whole situation. He wishes he’d just sucked it up and stayed with the guy, or come home last night having never caught his eye. “It wasn’t his fault. He was nice, and then I was a dick to him. Shit, I was a monster.”

Favs looks him right in the eyes and says, “that’s not like you,” with this faint curl to his lips that forces Lovett to smile along with him, then laugh.

“Fuck you,” he says. “I am a _delight_.”

Favs is still laughing at his own joke but cracks up more at that, eventually getting himself under control to say, “okay, but, ‘wasn’t good’ like… awkward, neither of you knew what you were doing?”

Lovett hesitates, thinking, then says, “I guess. Yeah.” The words are out before he realises he’s as good as admitted he’s never done it before and flashes a panicked glare Favs’ way before reasoning it’s not exactly like his reactions up to that point had made it seem like he was an old hand at this stuff. Not the way he knows Favs is. “It’s not as easy to find someone to fool around with when you’re gay in high school, okay? Straight people have it easy.”

Favs smiles benignly, holding his hands up in surrender, and waits until Lovett relaxes a little before he says, “maybe that’s why it didn’t go too well, then?” Favs suggests. “The other guy probably had no idea what he was doing and the two of you just fumbled the catch a bit.”

“Nice sports metaphor.”

“Thanks,” Favs says. No way anyone’s actually that oblivious to sarcasm. He does it on purpose half the time, Lovett is nearly sure.

“Maybe,” Lovett says, uncertainty still clear in his voice.

“I don’t know anyone whose first time went how they planned,” Favs continues, leaning back on his hands like he’s getting comfortable and planning to stay a while. Lovett’s surprised to realise he wouldn’t mind if he did. “I made my prom date cry before mine,” Favs admits, half-smiling but nose scrunching a little in what looks like long-past guilt.

“Of course you lost your virginity on prom night, you giant cliché.”

“Hey,” Favs says, drawn out in indignation. “I nearly didn’t, in the end, and it did not go how I planned, which is the moral of the story. I’ve had some _excellent_ sex since then, and you will, too.”

Lovett finds himself pulling his limbs up tight to his body as if he needs to be protected.

“How about I become a hermit instead?” he says, smiling as Favs laughs like he’s supposed to, and if Lovett is only half joking, Favs doesn’t need to worry about that right now.


	2. part i: (keep) your naked flesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title: from Frightened Rabbit's _Good Arms vs. Bad Arms_.

**_junior year_ **

Lovett finished his last midterm half an hour ago and he has just finally fallen into bed after what feels like a years’ absence from it when there’s one quick knock and his door is pushed open.

“I need you. Up,” Tommy says, walking in and picking up the clothes Lovett has just taken off. Lovett is so blearily tired he’s still struggling to process the magnitude of Tommy saying he needs him and what it does to his heart when Tommy adds, “C’mon, I need a producer and you’ll have to do.”

Lovett stares at the hand Tommy is holding in front of his face and feels genuinely, deeply indignant. “Fuck you,” he says. “I am running on negative sleep. Fuck off.”

Tommy rolls his eyes, saying, “nice statistic, Math Major. C’mon, get up, we need to leave in five or we won’t have time to grab coffee on the way in, and then you’ll really be pissed.”

“Or I could sleep,” Lovett says. “And you could go find literally _any_ one else.”

Tommy gives him an unimpressed look, dropping his shoes on top of him. “Like Favs? He’ll burn the studio down. Everyone else either has a midterm or is writing an assignment.” His expression softens, maybe taking in exactly what state Lovett’s in right now, and says, “Look, I’m sorry. If there were any other option I would take it, but I need your help. Please.”

Sometimes Lovett thinks Tommy’s figured out how weak Lovett is to him asking for things. If he has, though, Lovett comforts himself, Tommy’s presumably spending a lot of his time feeling guilty for manipulating him.

As he should, because Lovett doesn’t hold out against his puppy eyes for long. He says, “ugh, fine, avert your eyes if you don’t want an eyefull.”

Tommy makes a show of leering at him until Lovett shoves him, pushing him out of the door with a parting, “fuck you, pervert,” hopefully hiding the flush he can feel bloom up across the bridge of his nose.

Lovett pulls some fresh clothes on, realising the sweater is a Favs hand-me-down when he has to push the sleeves up to the elbow. He catches a glance at himself in the mirror and snorts at the picture he makes; like he’d reached into a closet, blind, and worn whatever came out first.

Tommy beams when Lovett meets him at the door, opening his mouth to say something. Lovett cuts him off, saying, “yeah, yeah, I have your eternal gratitude, Vietor, I know; what will that buy me, though?”

Tommy snorts. “Not some new clothes, unfortunately.”

“Oh, screw you,” Lovett says, and starts off on a rant about Tommy’s sartorial choices and his fundamental hypocrisy in judging _anyone_ else for what they wear. It carries them right up to when Tommy puts a coffee he’s paid for in Lovett’s hands. They start the short walk from the coffee place to the Union, falling into step because Tommy is one of those tall people who prides himself on being considerate.

It’s only then that Lovett notices Tommy’s tense shoulders and his short answers and rebutals to Lovett’s points.

“What’s got you twisted today?” Lovett asks. “Why does it even matter if you have a producer? You’ve managed on your own before.”

Tommy pulls a face to show how much fun that hadn’t been, and Lovett knows; he’s done it a few too many times, too. Student radio is not a glamorous affair.

“I’ve got an interview,” Tommy says.

“…Okay?” Lovett says, finally, after waiting for there to be more to it. “I’ve produced for myself with three guests multiple times and never actually broken anything beyond repair, so you’re going to have to find a better reason why you got me out of bed than that.”

Tommy looks in the opposite direction as he shrugs. “I just want it to go well,” he says. “This interview could be really good for us. Could lead to other things.”

“Uh huh,” Lovett says. “So could me being in bed. Asleep.”

“It was…” Tommy hesitating is a red flag. He looks almost sheepish, and Lovett can’t think of the last time that’s been true. “He’s a cool guy, okay? It took a lot to get him to agree to come on and he’s really smart and I don’t want him coming on thinking it’s amateur.”

“That’s kind of unavoidable,” Lovett tells him, stalling because there’s something more to this but asking Tommy outright will get him nowhere. “Because it _is_ amateur.” He keeps watching Tommy, watching as Tommy gets more and more uncomfortable under his gaze, flushed but resolutely staring ahead as they round the corner into the Union.

 _Oh_ , Lovett thinks, suddenly realising. _Tommy likes this guy._

The knowledge sinks like a stone in Lovett’s head. This nugget of something he’s figured out about Tommy, added to the pile he hoards in his brain. This one lands heavily, and, when he looks again at Tommy, he can’t help but view him differently.

 _Had to happen eventually_ , he thinks. _Grow up; get over it_.

They come up the stairs towards the studio to see a figure waiting for them, sitting on the floor with a book proped up against his legs. Blond hair, glasses, lips so perfect that describing them would sound too hyperbolic to belong to a real person.

“Hey, Ronan,” Tommy says, sounding happy and relieved and a little breathless. Generally the complete opposite of everything Lovett is feeling, meeting the eyes of a guy he rejected two years ago and who put him off sex maybe for forever. And who he hasn’t seen since.

~~~

 _Cool day,_ Lovett thinks, faintly, as his tired brain catches up to the entire fuckedness of the situation. He’s in a booth with two very attractive men for the next two hours, stuck here, listening as they talk as if he isn’t there. That alone is his worst nightmare. Ignoring the Ronan of it all, not to mention the Tommy, or the Tommy-and-Ronan, which apparently is a thing now? Something Lovett has to account for suddenly when up to now he’s never even imagined it could be possible.

_Fuck today._

“Lovett, are we ready?” Tommy asks.

“Sure,” Lovett says, then actually checks whether they are or not. “Okay, I’ll count you in,” he says, making eye contact with Tommy and carefully ignoring Ronan. “Three, two, one…”

Tommy takes over smoothly, as if Lovett produces for him every week. Lovett is grateful that he doesn’t because it means he’s bad at it, and it takes all his concentration to do his job competently, and that means he has none left for the distractions in the room.

Especially the beautiful one boring holes into the side of his head.

~~~

It wasn’t too weird that Lovett avoided talking to and looking at Ronan in a pathological way before Tommy’s show. They’d had about five minutes to get set up and get the transfer from the show before theirs, and Lovett really hasn’t done this particular job very often. As a freshman, he’d been roped into doing all kinds of odd jobs — they all had — but now he, Tommy and Favs pretty much run the whole opperation and they generally have freshmen to boss around for this kind of thing.

So Tommy only starts giving Lovett pointed looks when the show is done and they’ve handed off to Erin.

“What?” Lovett snaps at him, already calculating how much time he’s going to manage to get in bed tonight before the traditional end-of-midterms house party hits their apartment.

Tommy gives him a look that tells him he’s being weird, a mix of exasperation and incredulity, before turning to Ronan and saying, “thanks so much for coming on. You were great.”

Ronan has a smug smile. It’s probably not even something he can help, he just does, and he’s still too attractive to even look at too long. Lovett wraps his own arms around himself and, after another pointed look from Tommy, finally says, “hey, yeah, you were great. Tommy did good to get you to come on.”

Ronan shifts from smiling at Tommy, saying, “thanks, I had a great time,” to watching Lovett. He’s not being rude about it; it’s not like his expression says Lovett is something disgusting he stepped on. He manages to make Lovett feel that way anyway, is all, and Tommy looking between the two of them with a faintly confused expression on his face is making all of this unbearable.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Ronan says, in a voice that says he’s decided he’s going for the kill. “You look good.”

Lovett scowls. “Hey,” he says defensively. “I had midterms right up to when Tommy forced me into helping out and I know I look like I can’t dress myself but that is not representative of me. Generally.”

He stops short of saying _fuck you_ only because Tommy is now looking between them with slowly dawning… horror? Delight? It doesn’t seem like he’s quite decided yet.

“You two know each other?” he asks.

“Barely,” Lovett says, which is true but is also targeted to hurt, though Ronan’s face is a blank, apathetic mask. _Biblically_ , Lovett adds just for himself.

“We met in freshman year,” Ronan adds. He’s much calmer than Lovett feels, and he doesn’t know exactly why but all he’s thinking is that he desperately doesn’t want Tommy to find out about his embarrassing encounter with this beautiful, smart, possibly perfect man.

So he, stupidly, decides to run. He says, “oh, shit, I left…” and breaks for the studio. He can imagine Tommy’s bemused expression without seeing it, so he doesn’t look as he pushes past them.

He remembers to open the door as quietly as possible. Erin looks up as he enters, anyway. She smiles and says “hey” which means she must have a record on.

Lovett smiles back. “Sorry, I just-” he says, and doesn’t know how to end it.

She frowns at him and says “hey” again, this time with a trace of concern, “what do you need?”

“Nothing,” Lovett says. Then corrects himself: “an excuse for why I needed to come back in here.”

She raises her brows and stands to look out the window of the studio door, looking for what he was running from. “Oh,” she says softly, and he doesn’t know what she’s put together but he’s not going to have time to tell her the whole story, even if he wanted to, before the record she’s playing ends. She gives him a sympathetic look all the same; it’s a look that usually comes with people trying to hug him. She knows him better than to try, though, and instead she says, “well, I did need to run our next social past you. What do you think of a rubik’s cube party?”

“If it involves getting drunk and making Favs try to solve one until he cries, count me in,” he says, and she laughs, shushing him a second later so she can do a link between records.

“We should absolutely do that, too,” she says finally, once that’s done. “No, everyone comes with clothes of all different colours from a rubik’s cube and by the end of the night you need to be wearing one solid color or you lose.”

“Mandated clothes swapping,” Lovett says. “Cool. Yeah, do it. First person to manage it should get a prize.”

“Of course. We should make a tshirt or a pin or something,” Erin says, distracted a little by whatever she’s setting up in here. Erin’s shows are a weird mix of politics, pop culture and crafts and right now she has a box that says it’s a crochet kit in front of her alongside a close up print-out of Bush’s face, so who knows where that’s going. He’ll make Tommy put it on in the car on their way back to their place. She looks back up at him, searching his face for a moment. “There anything else I can do?”

Lovett looks over his shoulder, through the window, and sees Tommy stood against the wall on his own now. He feels himself relax and turns back to her, smiling, “no, I’m good. Thanks.”

“No problem,” she says, smiling, mostly listening for the end of the record. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Nodding, Lovett leaves as quietly as he can again and meets Tommy with a bright “sorted!”

They talk their usual shit on the way home and Lovett ignores the way Tommy’s watching him more than normal. Lovett tells him, “Erin manages to produce for herself, you know,” which really is impressive as she narrates her attempts to crochet the President’s likeness on the car radio.

“Thank you for helping,” Tommy says, sounding catty and utterly ungrateful. Then, in a tone that says he’s trying to be casual but which misses the mark by a distance, he adds, “I didn’t know you knew Ronan.”

Lovett bites his cheek, noting they’re nearly home and, just, couldn’t Tommy have waited?

“Yeah,” Lovett says. “Y’know, not really.” He looks out of the window and briefly wonders if asking Tommy to stop at Wendy’s will end this conversation early or drag it out. He opts to stay quiet.

“I invited him to the party,” Tommy says after a moment.

“Oh,” Lovett hears himself say. “Okay.” He tries telling himself it doesn’t matter; that he’d only known the guy for less than half a day two years ago. That he’s just built it up to be important in his head but that it isn’t and it shouldn’t matter.

It’s fine. It’s just a guy who made Lovett question his whole identity. No big deal.

Tommy carefully turns onto their street, hands at two and ten, flicking a comparatively cautious glance Lovett’s way before asking, “is that okay?”

 _No,_ Lovett thinks, but says, “sure.” He means to add something to lighten the moment but he just can’t make himself say _why wouldn’t it be?_ because he’s pretty sure it’ll come out strangled, weighed down with the dumb reasons it isn’t, actually.

“Okay,” Tommy says, pulling into a spot next to their place.

Lovett is out of the car before Tommy puts it in park.

~~~

Lovett wakes bleary eyed and confused and with the sound of a party starting up no more than five feet away from his head, barely muffled by the thin walls of their apartment.

He gives himself the length of a song to stare at the ceiling and wish he didn’t have to go out there, then pushes himself up, grabs an outfit he looks okay in and heads to the bathroom for a quick, scalding shower and to give himself a pep talk in the mirror. It’s not super effective, but after brushing his teeth there’s a loud knock on the door and a voice which says, “hey, anyone in there?”

Lovett opens the door and lets Dan in, taking his friendly clap on the shoulder with a smile. He forces himself into the party.

The apartment Lovett shares with Favs and Tommy is where their group tends to hang out because it’s criminally big for the money they spend on it, or at least the main room is. The three of them make do with cupboard-sized bedrooms, each with a bed which takes up almost the entire floorspace because their kitchen/diner/livingroom is twice the size of most of their friends’ whole apartments. The downside is it always looks like a frathouse exploded on it, but they have a tiny balcony for the smokers, too, so really it’s worth the compromises.

Now, most of their group have turned up, the music’s on, and it’s a welcoming little hub full of Lovett’s friends that he feels himself getting warm and fuzzy looking at despite himself. He finds Favs pretty quickly and sticks to him like a barnacle. He gets a rant going about Tommy making him produce for him and manages to make Emily laugh so hard she cries, which is cool. Emily’s pretty new to their group, still, but, if she’s willing to laugh at his jokes, he’s happy with the idea of Favs settling down.

He’s pretty sure that’s not what Favs would call what’s going on between the two of them, yet, but Lovett’s got eyes.

Over Emily’s shoulder, Tommy moves into view. He’s grinning, bright and wide, in a way Lovett sometimes gets to see when Tommy forgets about grades and his family and everything else he worries about and just focuses on whatever bullshit’s coming out of Lovett’s mouth to entertain him. He has to work hard for those grins, Lovett thinks, and turns back to Favs before has to see the source of the smile this time.

Lovett can’t seem to avoid seeing Tommy, much as he tries. He sees him with a drink in his hand talking seriously to Travis, then dancing dorkily with Priyanka, then with Ronan, who is laughing full-force and leaning into Tommy’s space. Tommy is tall, is the thing. Even when he’s sat down he stands out, looking up at a dancing Ira and laughing at something he said. Lovett’s eyes catch on the way his shoulder is pressed into Ronan’s.

Once he’s noticed them together they don’t seem to separate, and Lovett can’t stop staring at them like they’re magnetic. Like he’s orbiting them while they orbit each other.

 _Dumb,_ he tells himself.

He finds himself watching as Ronan leans in to say something directly in Tommy’s ear, something which makes Tommy’s face smooth out from goofiness into something attentive. Tommy turns to Ronan and listens, closely, then says something back, maybe asking a question, and looks like nothing could tear his attention away as Ronan replies.

“Are you okay?” Favs asks in his ear, hand landing between Lovett’s shoulder blades because when Favs checks in he can’t help but do it partly through touch. He’s a tactile guy. Honestly, Lovett made himself get used to it while they were still roommates as freshmen because he was so thrilled a straight guy wasn’t going to be a dick about sharing his space. “You’re kind of out of it.”

Lovett thinks about lying. He thinks about saying, _sure, of course, don’t smother me_ , but Favs and Emily are both looking at him in confusion and concern and even as he’s figuring out what to say he sees Favs follow where he’s been looking and the slow transformation of confusion to realisation dawn on his face. He says, “wait, shit, _Tomm-_ ”

“ _Don’t._ ” Lovett glares at him, cheeks heating, as Emily looks between the two of them with the calm, sympathetic look of someone who already knew this. Lovett guesses he hasn’t been subtle. He’s pretty sure Tommy knows, after all, and he knows Dan does. Of their closest-knit group, in fact, Favs is the last to get it.

Favs holds his hands up and says, “sure, okay, consider it unmentioned.” Lovett knows that won’t last, but Favs manages a full minute before he asks, “since _when?_ ”

“I’m not talking about this,” Lovett tells him brightly, then pushes past Favs towards the balcony.

He passes Tommy and Ronan to get there, keeping his head up and not looking away from his goal. He’s pretty sure he hears Tommy say, “hey, Lovett, did you know-” and he thinks Tommy reaches out and touches his thigh to get his attention, but Lovett ploughs on and pretty soon he’s out on the balcony and away from all of it.

Erin, Kara and Louis are out there. The balcony’s just big enough that they can lie down on it next to each other and look up at the stars together, if they don’t mind the cold of the tiles underneath them slowly seeping into their bones. They’re giggling, drunk and sweet, Erin’s face pressed into Kara’s shoulder and Louis’ arm is flung over her middle. The three of them are still giggling as they look up at Lovett, upside down, and as Erin says, “hey, Lovett.”

Kara and Louis greet him with identical “Jonathan”’s. He’s never sure if those two are laughing more at or with him. He smiles, asking, “what’re you doing out here?” as he sits on the ground next to their heads and leans back against the door he’d slid closed behind him.

“Oh!” Erin interupts, reaching for and grabbing onto his ankle. “Are you okay? From earlier. What was going on?”

Lovett roles his eyes and hits his head back against the glass of the door in exasperation, though a little harder than he’d meant to. “I’m fine,” he says, but he’s always found Erin charming and drunk Erin even more so, so he puts his hand on top of hers on his ankle to gentle the annoyance in his voice. “Thank you,” he adds. “You saved me from awkwardness. That’s all.”

Erin makes a noise that tells him she doesn’t buy it, then asks, “was it to do with Tommy flirting with that beautiful guy?”

Lovett looks quickly at Louis and Kara, who do not look surprised, then realises he should’ve laughed it off if he were going to have any chance persuading any of them Erin’s off the mark.

“Oh, so everyone’s talked about it,” Lovett says. “Fantastic.”

“Favs hasn’t caught on?” Erin hazards, cut off by Lovett laughing without humour and asking, “what do you think I was running from just now?”

At least the stars are pretty.

Erin reaches out for Lovett’s hand with her free one, taking it and holding on. “I think the chances of him turning you down are pretty slim, love,” and that’s the worst part. Lovett’s pretty sure she’s right.

When Tommy came out to him last summer, they’d been day drinking to celebrate completing sophomore year and Tommy had been working himself up to it all day when finally Favs had gone inside to pee and Dan had gone to grab them all drinks and Tommy had turned to Lovett and said, “hey, so I’m bi.”

And Lovett had stared at him for a second before saying, “shit, Vietor, this is a real ‘dear diary’ moment, you know that?” and it’d taken him approximately one second to realise he’s a dick for somehow making Tommy’s big moment about himself and exactly the same amount of time for Tommy to start laughing, hard, letting out all the tension he’d been holding until he’s nearly crying it out. He’d pulled Lovett into a one-armed hug and said, sincerely, “thank you,” and Lovett hadn’t been able to look at him as he’d laughed awkwardly and replied, “no, thank you for telling me. It’s a big thing.”

Tommy had pulled away, looked at Lovett side on, and asked, “does it get less big? I feel like when you told us it was no big deal.”

Lovett had shrugged, then considered it, and in the middle of considering Tommy’s question he’d got caught up in wondering if he was the first person Tommy’d said it out loud to and can’t stop the honored, touched feeling he gets in his heart.

“You know how ducks look like they aren’t making effort when they swim but if you look under the surface their legs are going crazy?” Lovett had asked, tipsy enough his analogies are coming out of him without permission. “Their chicks don’t really swim like that, do they? I think it’s like that. You get better at pretending it’s no big deal, but the anxiety never goes away.” He’d looked at Tommy to find him looking faintly overwhelmed and Lovett had said, “sorry, that’s probably not what you need to hear. I am not the best ambassador for the community.”

“No, it’s honest,” Tommy had said after a moment’s thought. He’d grinned, then, shy but bright, and added, “Lovett, I think this is an actual, human-to-human moment you’re letting us have, here. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Fuck off, I’m plenty human,” Lovett had said, shoving at Tommy’s shoulder. Objectively, it’s one of the stupider things he’s ever said, but it’d made Tommy laugh and Dan, as he’d rejoined them, say, “huh, who would’ve guessed.”

Tommy had told Dan and Favs that same afternoon, growing more confident with it each time. Favs had taken a moment to process it but had come through like the earnest puppy he is at heart, and Lovett remembers seeing the relief in Tommy and being bowled over by how much he’d cared about the idiot.

That’s maybe where it’d started.

Lovett had been flirting innocently with both Tommy and Favs since he’d decided they were his best friends and there was nothing he could do about it, so after Tommy’s revelation, Lovett had been careful not to stop. And from there, he’d dug himself a hole.

“Maybe,” he says now to Erin. “But maybe not, so I can’t. I’ll get over it,” he adds, flashing her a smile, then turning to Louis for a reliable distraction. “Hey, who won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars in 1969?”

“Ruth Gordan, _Rosemary’s Baby_ ,” Louis replies immediately. “And I see what you are doing, Jonathan Lovett, so you’d better at least think of some difficult ones if you want me to go along with this distraction.”

Lovett laughs, joining Erin and Kara, and gives Kara a grateful look when she says, “Best Screenplay, ’67.”

~~~

Lovett figures this can only get better if he’s high, so shares a little of Erin’s weed-stuffed pipe until he’sgiggly-sad instead of just sad.

As a vaneer of normalcy, it probably needs work.

“Do I have to?” he asks, whining, as Kara stands in front of him and waits for him to move.

“Jon,” she says. “I need food and food is inside. You have to.”

“Ugh.”

He rolls out of the way and onto his feet with the help of the balcony railing. He holds onto it tightly and leans over a little to look down at the ground until Louis puts a hand on his shoulder, turning him round to face the three of them, serious-faced.

“We’ll flank you,” Louis tells him. “Don’t worry, love, it’ll be fine.”

“I’m fine,” he says, but it’s not like he’s trying to persuade them. He rolls his eyes at himself and pastes on a grin. “Don’t I seem fine?”

Kara says, “oh, babe,” walking the thin line between sympathetic and done with his shit. She wraps an arm around his waist, letting him wriggle free but still stay close as the four of them head back into the party. Kara beelines straight to the kitchen where there’s a cooling selection of pizzas on the counter, and they follow.

Lovett sees Tommy leaning against the refridgerator too late. Tommy looks up, grinning slow and easy at him, and Lovett can’t turn away now. He detours enough to grab two slices of pizza - different toppings - and stacks them into a sandwich before Tommy says, “hey, where’ve you been tonight?” and looms into Lovett’s space.

“Balcony,” Kara says shortly, around a mouthful of pizza. She settles next to Lovett, eyes trained on Tommy in that unsettlingly aware, fixated way high Kara gets sometimes.

Tommy looks between them. “Cool,” he says. “It’s nice out there.” He seems to have forgotten exactly how to talk like an intelligent person, which often happens to him around Kara. Louis loops an arm around Tommy’s neck and hangs off him, smiling too-sweetly at him, and Tommy maybe actually starts to blush. It’s hard to tell in this light — they’ve just got the lamps in the corners of the room on because the lounge light is out again — but Lovett’s pretty sure. Having Louis and Kara’s attention on a single person is cruel, really.

“So who’s your pretty boy, Vietor?” Louis asks in a stage whisper. Now Tommy is definitely blushing all the way up his neck, which is both Lovett’s favourite and least favourite version of Tommy, because he’s basically impossible to look away from.

“He’s uh, an attractive guy, sure,” Tommy says as if he’s only just thinking about it. “Good face.”

“You’re still so bad at gay talk,” Lovett says.It’s meant to be a joke but that’s not how it comes out. Louis flicks him a quick, surprised glance and Tommy frowns a little, looking more confused than anything. Lovett shoves half of his pizza sandwich into his mouth in an effort to be less of a monster.

“Okay,” Tommy says, slow. His face is torn, like he’s figuring out still if he should be really offended by that or laugh it off. Lovett briefly wishes Favs were here to model for Tommy that they should be making fun of Lovett. That it should be a _Lovett, you don’t have a monopoly on being gay_ situation, not a situation where they fight or Tommy looks upset.

Then again, it’s probably better for them all that Favs, with his expressive, never-learnt-to-lie face is nowhere near the two of them for the rest of the night.

Pizza has never tasted so awful.

“So?” Louis prompts, turning so he’s half-sheilding Lovett with his own body as if Tommy’s a bomb that’s about to go off. He’s looking at Tommy with feigned impatience. “You haven’t driven him away, have you? Because I have to warn you: if you have, he’s fair game for the rest of us.”

Lovett morosely takes another bite of pizza, surreptitiously glancing up at Tommy to see him looking uncomfortable but amused. Like with Kara, that’s pretty much how Tommy gets around Louis.

“Not yet,” Tommy is saying. “I’ll point him in your direction if and when, though.”

“Oh, as if. Don’t humor me,” Louis says, sounding pleased. “ _You’re_ punching above your weight with that one.”

Lovett sees Tommy shake his head, smiling, from the corner of his eye and tries to focus on Kara’s arm brushing against his to stop from dropping his pizza on the floor, grabbing Tommy by the neck of his stupid, too-tight polo and kissing him on the lips.

His imagination stalls from there. He’s kissed people before; he doesn’t know why when he imagines it happening again a white noise machine turns on in his brain.

That that time with Ronan — that _only_ time — wasn’t traumatic enough for him to be this messed up over it.

It wouldn’t have been for anyone else, anyway.

“Hey.”

Ronan — pink-cheeked, grinning, and with shining eyes — slots into their formation beside Tommy in a space that could’ve been intentionally left for him. He gives a wave that should be awkward to the group at large, then a nod to Lovett as his smile dims. “Hi everyone. Lovett.”

Tommy introduces them all, starting to tell everyone about the interview that afternoon and how cool Ronan’s extracurricular work writing about the Sudan or something is. He breaks off, though, to say, “hey, you never explained how you two know each other…” leading, looking between Ronan — who Lovett now sees, looking up, has been watching him since he slotted next to Tommy — and Lovett.

Ronan’s smile is as noncommittal as they come, but something about the way he holds eye contact with Lovett in the pause after Tommy’s question makes Lovett’s heart kick up a gear. His hands get clammy and he decides he has to talk to Tommy.

He tosses the crusts of his pizza on the counter behind him and grabs Tommy by the arm. “I need to talk to you,” he says, pulling him out of the kitchen and towards their rooms.

He imagines if he looked round he’d see Ronan watching them with that same noncommittal smile, but he doesn’t know the guy, really. Maybe that’s dumb.

“Hey, Lovett, what the hell?” Tommy asks, letting himself be pulled along, which, Lovett’s not kidding himself. No way he’d be able to move Tommy if Tommy decided he didn’t want to be moved.

Lovett hesitates in front of their bedroom doors before finally chosing the neutral ground of Favs’ room, sending up a prayer of thanks when it’s not the site of something he never wants to see between Favs and Emily, yet.

He drops Tommy’s arm. Folds his own across his chest.

“Have you done it with a guy, yet?” he asks Tommy, all in a rush.

There’s a beat of silence in which Lovett prepares for Tommy to either laugh or shout at him, but what he gets instead is just as Tommy in its own way.

“I take it you mean ‘have I had sex with a man yet’?” Tommy translates. He sighs, sitting heavily on Favs’ bed, bouncing a little with the force of it. He sighs again, a bit less genuine this time; put on to try to lighten the mood or just make any of this less intense. “Yeah. Why?”

Lovett bites his lip as if he needs extra help from his own body not to answer that. He shrugs. Some of the tension leaves him, though.

“You want details?” Tommy asks, a wry, sarcastic twist to his mouth that says he knows the answer. Lovett snorts and shakes his head anyway. Tommy tilts his head like a Labrador. “Is this where you give me the gay birds and the bees?” he asks.

“Pretty sure that analogy only works where reproduction is involved,” Lovett says. “But yeah, I guess. If you’d needed it, I’d’ve made sure you knew what to expect.”

Lovett would quite like to run out of the window to his left to escape this conversation, now, before Tommy starts asking questions, but Tommy smiles and looks kind of fond — touched by the gesture — even as he’s clearly exasperated.

“You know there’s this thing called the internet…” Tommy says, and Lovett automatically responds, “oh, yeah, and you should definitely trust everything that’s said on there,” to which Tommy just laughs, fondness winning out on his face.

“Thanks for the thought,” he says. He stands up. “Was that it?”

Lovett should say yes, and shrug, and maybe break out some blackmail material so that Tommy never mentions this conversation to anyone. But he wants to say, _if you don’t like it-_

He cuts off the thought. Because he’s pretty sure, deep down, it wasn’t Ronan. He’s pretty sure it had nothing to do with Ronan at all. He’s pretty sure Ronan did nothing wrong. He’s pretty sure Tommy will be absolutely fine, because he’s known all along, deep down, that it’s just him that’s messed up.

Lovett’s been quiet too long, and Tommy looks confused and concerned, now, all the fondness hidden away.

“Hey,” Tommy says, reaching out as if he’s going to touch Lovett’s waist. “You said you were okay with him being here,” he adds. There’s a loaded pause in which Lovett knows Tommy’s thinking things through from every angle. “Is it not okay?” Then, smaller, “if it’s not, tell me.”

 _It’s weird that two guys I’ve made into these big things in my head are all over each other,_ Lovett thinks, and then traps the thought away where it can’t make Tommy sad.

He shakes his head, gives Tommy a tight-lipped smile that’s just as effervescent as he can make it with the balloon of trapped emotion sitting between his ribs and his stomach. “No, it’s fine. Sorry,” he says. “I’m just spacey; you know what Erin’s stuff is like.”

Tommy laughs on queue; says, “right. Now it makes sense.”

He guides Lovett back out into the party, where Lovett continues to blame the pot and convinces himself it’s why he can’t feel his feet or face or anything but burning, inappropriate jealousy and hurt as he watches Ronan and Tommy go back to orbiting each other.

Tommy slots back into the space Ronan has left at his side, shares a loaded glance with him, and drops a too-casual arm over his shoulder.

They both look overly pleased with themselves.

Lovett picks up a bottle of the worst liquor to hand — tastes like aniseed — and drinks straight from the bottle until Erin — kind-eyed, dancing Erin — takes it away and leads him out of the gravitational pull of the two brightest boys in the room.

~~~

Later, as these things tend to go, he regrets everything.

He’s in a bathroom again — this time his own — and the early morning light is filtering in through the blinds, and he’s deciding whether he’s going to throw up again if he moves when the door behind him opens and Ronan says, “oh, shit, sorry.” Then, after a pause, “are you dying?”

“I wish,” Lovett says, before he fully realises who he’s talking to. Then he groans, dropping his head down to porcelain with a thunk that says it’s really plastic. He says, “just put me out of my mysery.”

“One of those morning afters, huh?” Ronan asks, amusement clear in his voice. Lovett’s _I’m being laughed at_ senses are tingling, and that’s something he’ll maybe have the energy to care about after twelve more hours of sleep.

“Yes.” He pushes himself up until he’s sitting upright. Ronan watches him, concerned and amused in what is a common look shared by anyone watching a harmless drunk person, until Lovett says, “I’ll move, sorry. Just give me a sec,” before closing his eyes and trying to get up to his feet without opening them in the hopes it’ll make him feel less like he’s at sea.

“Wait,” Ronan says, grabbing onto Lovett’s elbow to steady him.

His hands are smaller than Tommy’s. Nearly as small as Lovett’s. One of the last things Lovett remembers, semi-coherently, is one of those hands curled in the short hairs at the nape of Tommy’s neck as they’d walked out of the lounge towards Tommy’s room.

As soon as he’s standing roughly under his own power — the wall is helping a little — he shrugs Ronan off.

 _Keep your filthy paws of my silky drawers,_ Lovett thinks, nonsensically, so either Ira or Erin must’ve put _Grease_ on last night at some point. That or Lovett is spontaneously quoting Rizo, now, internally, which really would be cause for an end to it all.

“Did we watch _Grease_?” he asks.

The short laugh sounds like it’s forced out of Ronan in sheer surprise before he says, “Yeah, pretty sure you guys woke up the whole block singing about your automatic, systematic, hydromatic cars.”

 _Oh. So after they went to bed, then._ Lovett thinks. _Probably._ His head hurts too much to think on it too much more, which is a blessing in a very good disguise.

“C’mon,” Ronan says. “Let’s get you some water.”

He pulls Lovett through to the lounge somehow without actually touching him — pure magnatism, maybe — and sits him on the couch before raking through the kitchen until he brings back a big, novelty cereal bowl for any hypothetical vomit, a pint glass of water, and some saltines. He arranges everything around Lovett before looking at him contemplatively for a moment and sitting down next to him. He twists slightly so he’s facing him.

“You should drink that,” he says, watching Lovett through a blank mask of a face, giving away none of the annoyance or disgust Lovett’s sure he must be feeling. Lovett obediently picks up the glass of water, brings it to his lips, and closes his eyes in ecstasy as he sips the cool water.

“Thanks,” Lovett says. He keeps his eyes closed as he lowers the glass to hold it between his knees and curves his back over it, resting his face in his hands, pressing into his eye sockets in the effort to make them hurt less. “You don’t have to stay with me. I’m not actually dying.”

“It’s fine,” Ronan replies.

They stew in awkward quiet for a few long minutes, Lovett extra conscious of Ronan being right next to him, so close it’ll take actual effort not to touch him when he eventually feels up to standing up again. That’s not likely to happen any time soon, though; he’ll be crawling back to his room if he has to move any time in the near future.

“So is it a full blackout or just a partial situation?” Ronan asks eventually, reaching for the saltines and offering them to Lovett before taking a couple himself.

“Pretty total, I think,” Lovett tells him. He chances a glance at Ronan to find him slouched back on the couch, watching Lovett with half-lidded eyes. There’s a shadow where his shirt opens at his neck that could be a hickey. He looks away. “Were Favs and Dan trying to get us all to play drunk Trivial Pursuit at one point?”

“Not when I was around,” Ronan says, and it might just be a trick of Lovett’s pickled brain but his voice is a little harder when he says it, he thinks. Or maybe just a little more intense.

Lovett says, “Right, that was after you-” He waves in the direction of the bedrooms. “‘Course.”

His brain isn’t tricking him over how he says that; his voice comes out timid and hurt and his shoulders tense up and Ronan’s not an idiot, clearly, because Tommy would never be attracted to him if he were, so obviously he’s going to notice.

“Tommy said you were okay with it,” Ronan says, with that same intensity and a little surprise.

“You guys talked about me?” Lovett turns his head to look at him and instantly regrets it as his head pounds. He reaches for the cereal bowl, just in case. Ronan is still lounging, somehow only his voice giving away that he’s interested in their conversation. Unless Lovett’s ears are playing tricks on him.

“Of course,” Ronan says. “You’re best friends, and whatever grudge you might hold against me I didn’t want to mess anything up between you two, so I asked him if he was sure you were okay with it, and he said you’d said you were.”

“Grudge?” Lovett asks. Ronan looks at him in askance, as if the answer to that one word question were obvious. Lovett doesn’t want to admit how confused he is, so instead just focuses on the important part. “Yeah, I’m fine with… you and him,” he says. “Good for you. Please spare me the details.”

There’s a pause while Lovett looks into the depths of his cereal bowl and contemplates the likelyhood of him vomiting into it before this conversation blessedly ends. Then Ronan says, “You must have been more convincing when you weren’t hungover, because Tommy seemed really sure.”

 _Sure_ is both the opposite of how Lovett feels right now and of how Ronan sounds. Lovett glances at him out of the corner of his eye to see that Ronan has now tipped his head back and is staring at the ceiling, frowning hard, teeth pulling at the pink fullness of his bottom lip.

“It’s fine,” Lovett says, trying one more time to sell it.

“It’s obviously not,” Ronan tells him. “Please stop lying.”

Lovett makes a frustrated sound that’s half-sigh, half-laugh and says, “You hardly know me. Can’t you just take it at face value when I tell you what’s going on inside my head?”

“No,” Ronan says. “You’re right, but I still know you’re not okay with me and Tommy and I don’t know why you didn’t tell him that. Did you even tell him how we knew each other? I stupidly assumed you must have when you dragged him off for that one-to-one but obviously I should have checked with him.”

Ronan’s speaking quicker and quicker. When he breaks off he’s sitting up again, turned towards Lovett on he couch and leaning towards him, trying to make eye contact.

“Open communication is important before sex,” Lovett agrees, to be a dick.

“Fuck you,” Ronan says, in a quick, brief flash of anger.

Lovett flinches, mentally kicks himself, then turns and says, “I’m sorry.” That feels like not enough but he stumbles over what else to say. He wants to throw up; thinks of the relief from nausea he might feel in the aftermath if this sick to his stomach feeling were only caused by drink. Finally he adds, “I said that to be hurtful and you didn’t deserve it.”

Lovett remembers seeing that exact facial expression — a small crease between his eyebrows, biting his lip, eyes wide — on Ronan’s face two years ago as he left him on his doorstep. It hasn’t got any more bearable with time.

Lovett goes to take a drink only to find he’s run out of water. His throat is scratchy and dry and he mournfully thinks about getting up to get more — at least he’d be able to give Ronan some space — but Ronan loudly exhales, exasperatedly, and takes the glass from him. He’s gone for a moment, returning with a full glass of cool water.

“Here,” he says, holding it out. It could be a peace offering or it could just be water, but Lovett is tentatively hopeful as he takes it, holds Ronan’s eyes, and says, “thank you.”

Ronan sits back down next to Lovett.

“I’m sorry you aren’t okay with it,” Ronan tells him. “You should know, I was hoping to make out with someone in front of you to show you I was over it, and I really like Tommy, but I wouldn’t have slept with him if I’d known it would actually hurt you.”

Lovett tries to make a sound of agreement, but he’s pretty sure it sounds a lot less okay and nonchallant than he’d like.

“Was it that it was Tommy?” Ronan asks. “Or that it was with me?”

“You say that like it can’t be ‘none of the above’,” Lovett replies. Ronan just looks at him, steady and sure of his conclusions, waiting for Lovett to blink. Lovett looks away, shrugs once, and then says, “It’s really not your problem. Just go back to bed. Enjoy it.”

Ronan takes that in, still laser focused on Lovett — so intent and single-minded Lovett can feel his eyes on the side of his head like they’re pinning him to a specimen board.

“Okay, well,” he says, after a long pause where Lovett refuses to look at him. “That sucks, but okay. You don’t have to worry. I’ll, uh, get out of your way. Least I can do for an old acquaintance.”

“What?” Lovett stares at Ronan in absolute incredulity. Either he’s not capable of following a conversation with this many layers or Ronan is… an idiot? Or very sweet. Lovett’s not sure which idea would be more devastating. “What are you talking about?”

Ronan’s smile _is_ sweet, knowing and a little bit mocking, but it’s as likely to be mocking of himself as of Lovett.

“Are you telling me you got black out drunk _not_ because you have a thing for Tommy?” Ronan asks. The way he asks should be condescending. It is, really. Lovett will work up to being really incensed about it, maybe, once he’s done reeling from his gut reaction which is to say, “What? No.” again. Ronan lazily shrugs before saying, “Okay, I don’t know you. Maybe you get black out drunk all the time. It just doesn’t seem true to type.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lovett asks, realising he’s pulled his legs up so one’s under him and he can cling to the other with both arms. Fuck. His head’s too vulnerable for this conversation.

“I… don’t know,” Ronan admits, sounding a lot less condescending now. He’s watching Lovett, and seems a bit taken aback by his body language. He offers Lovett a smile like a peace offering. “I really don’t know you that well. I’m kind of a snap judgement sort of person, and my snap judgement of you wasn’t that you were surviving college via an alcohol dependency.” He pauses, grimaces, and starts again in an almost entirely different tone. “Sorry. All of that makes me sound like a judgemental dick. I don’t really think like this, normally, and I definitely don’t talk like it. I’m in a weird mood.”

Ronan’s been so self-assured throughout the short time Lovett’s spent with him that it’s a shock to hear him unsure and self-deprecating. _Shit,_ Lovett thinks. _I’ve been adjacent to two perfectly fine one night stands in Ronan’s life and I’ve managed to ruin both of them._ _Hopes he’s at least managed to have some ordinary, well-adjusted experiences in between._

“I drink a normal amount, so your snap judgements aren’t wrong,” Lovett admits after a bit longer a pause. “Sorry. About being a mess. It’s really not your problem.”

Ronan shrugs and smiles with half of his mouth, wryly, as if it’s no big deal, eyes keen as he continues to watch him.

“Have you been… pining?” Ronan asks, straight-faced like that’s something you can just ask someone. Lovett pulls a face to show what he thinks of that idea.

Then he shrugs, and says, “I’ve been… noticing, I guess. He’s my best friend and he’s _that_ hot and he’s not even straight. I noticed.” He shrugs again. “And, again, not your problem. Go enjoy some, y’know, morning after sex, or whatever.”

Lovett pretzels himself up so he’s not hugging himself anymore, but is still as tightly wound in a chair as it’s possible to be.

“I think he’s noticed back,” Ronan says, softly. He watches Lovett as he fidgets and won’t meet his eyes, then exhales loudly in put-on frustration and says, with a wry smile, “God, this sucks. Why are the good ones always taken?”

Lovett snorts a laugh into his water. “He’s not! I haven’t- I’ve said, haven’t I? Have at it. Get yourselves to a courthouse and get some civil partnership paperwork rushed through for all I- well, for all I get a say in any of this, which is not at all, because my stuff is _not your problem_.”

When Ronan just continues to watch him, Lovett asks, “Are you always this self-sacrificing? It’s dumb. Nothing good is going to come from it. I’m going to start thinking you don’t even like him in a minute and then I’ll be really pissed because you should know now Tommy isn’t a casual kind of person. That civil partnership bit was only mostly a joke.”

“Sounds like you two are a match made in heaven,” Ronan says, his smile growing a little more sly. “Given you once told me you’re not a casual kind of person, either.”

Lovett is a bear in the moment when a trap snaps around its legs and hobbles it, left blinking owlishly at Ronan. He pulls himself out of the metaphor and looks away, down at his hands where they’re twisting the material of his shirt up until it’s pulled unflatteringly taught against his waist.

Trapped, he does what he always does when he feels out of control.

“I lied. I just didn’t want to see you again,” Lovett tells him. “Sorry. I was and am a dick when it comes to that kind of thing.” He pauses, leaving the moment of honest-meanness to hang in the space between them. “Did you get that in your snap judgement assessment?”

“That, what, you actually don’t do commitment?” Ronan asks. “I figured there was a reason you weren’t letting yourself have what you obviously want.” He’s strangely level, still. Lovett wishes he didn’t want to get under his skin, but that’s exactly what he finds himself wanting, now, glancing up at Ronan’s calm, steady expression. “I think it’s dumb not to try.”

Lovett meets his eyes. “So take your own advice. Go get back into bed.”

Reaching for the TV remote, Ronan turns it on and starts flipping through the channels until he settles on one where the Roadrunner is currently falling to their death. He puts the remote back, turns to Lovett, and says, very seriously, “This is my favourite and if you change the channel I will take it very personally.” He gets up, takes Lovett’s empty water glass, and leaves for a few minutes. Lovett watches the TV in an absent, confused state, unsure where he’d expected that conversation to go or where it actually ended up.

When Ronan returns, it’s with a newly filled water glass — which he hands to Lovett — and a quiet, “Tommy’s coming through in a few minutes, so you’d better decide now.”

Lovett takes the water on autopilot. He stares as Ronan sits down next to him, leaving a Tommy sized space between them, then Lovett says, “I think I may throw up.”

Ronan passes him the empty cereal bowl.

Lovett is curled up on the couch, tucked as far into the cushions as he can get, when Tommy emerges, giving both of them identical sleepy, happy smiles. He has his comforter wrapped around his shoulders and sits between the two of them, taking up the whole space so that Lovett starts to wish he could actually sink into a space between the cushions and the arm of the couch.

“Morning.” Tommy looks between them, eyes crinkled into a smile but obviously confused, too; it’s visible in the way he’s biting his lip. “Good night?” he asks Lovett, taking in the state he’s in, obviously amused.

Lovett shrugs. “Oh, sure,” he says. “Though you’ll have to ask one of the people who let me get too drunk to remember my own name to find out why it was so great.” He cuts a quick glance at Ronan, who is carefully watching the two of them. He gives Lovett a straightforward, unreadable look. One that seems to dare him.

And there’s a huge, screaming part of Lovett that wants to turn to Tommy right now and say, “hey, leave this Ken Doll perfect man and have me, your annoying, hard-work best friend instead.” Or maybe he just wants to kiss him, vomit breath be damned.

“Anyway,” he says, out loud. “You had a better one, I hear,” and waggles his eyebrows.

Tommy laughs, delighted and even looking a little relieved ( _cool, I didn’t need that ego anyway_ , Lovett thinks, thinking fatalistically that all the times he thought maybe Tommy felt the same must actually just have been a cruel trick of suggestion and false hope like he’d always feared). Tommy blushes right across his nose. He turns to look at Ronan, a grin breaking across his face, starting off shy and quickly building to just… happy.

“I’ve definitely had worse,” Tommy says, managing to flirt while sounding somehow sweet and wholesome.

He leans into Ronan’s space, watching to see if it’s okay as he does so, and gives him a sweet, lingering kiss, looping an arm around his shoulders.

Ronan sighs against his lips, suddenly relaxed in himself in a way he hadn’t been the whole time he’d been alone with Lovett, Lovett now realises.

And Lovett watches them, cartoons on in the background, until they break away from each other and give him near-identical sheepish looks.

“Want some pointers?” Lovett asks, just to get them to stop looking at him like that, especially Ronan, and manages a smile when Tommy laughs and swats at him with a couch cushion.

The three of them settle in, Tommy sharing his comforter with Ronan and the two of them curling into each other; Lovett on the other side of the couch, curling into himself. The cartoons roll on, and Lovett promises himself he won’t let the roiling pit of jealousy ruin either a chance for these two beautiful, intelligent people to be happy, or one of the most important relationships in his life.

There’s something fucked up about watching cartoon characters fight in an endless loop and thinking, _what a lovely metaphor for how watching this happen is going to feel_. Lovett is a fan of self-serving metaphors, but he’d be happy if this one turned out to be just the product of a melodramatic, hungover brain.

He just doesn’t think watching Tommy with someone else will ever stop feeling like an anvil dropping on his head.


	3. interlude: ronan

Ronan has known this from the start: the only time it’ll be okay for him to tell Tommy is _now_. Right at the beginning.

He’s pretty pissed Lovett left it for him to do, actually. Or he would be, if he didn’t understand how excruciatingly awkward it must be for Lovett, right now. Being okay with Ronan-and-Tommy. Being (normal) around them. Pretending he’s not pining after his best friend. He does understand why Lovett doesn’t want to add explaining to that best friend that his current boyfriend is someone who he fucked, once.

He gets it, but he’s still kind of pissed.

Ronan and Tommy have been dating, or whatever it is they’re doing, for a week when Ronan hits an internal deadline he set for himself and that his mom is going to ask him about next time she calls. A point of no return, he calls it in his head. So on a Friday after his last class, he knocks on Tommy( and Lovett and Favs)’s door and says, “did I ever tell you how Lovett and I knew each other?” as soon as he sees Tommy’s goofy smile on his perfect face.

“Uh… no?” Tommy says, letting Ronan step under his hand on the door after an exchange of quick pecks on the lips — they start with one, but both go back for an extra. “Which you know, because your memory is stupid good.”

Ronan peeks into the main room, waving to Favs and Emily, before snagging Tommy’s hand in his and leading him to his own room. He sits on Tommy’s bed, laughing as Tommy takes the opportunity to stand between Ronan’s knees and kiss him properly for a good few minutes, his back bent over to make up for the height difference.

Tommy is… really sweet. And funny. And smart. And _hot_. And Ronan needs to rip this bandaid off and find out if there’s a festering wound underneath now, not later, because later might lead to a broken heart. Or at least to some inadvisable life choices. He doesn’t have a good track record on that score when it comes to boys in this appartment, but he’s hoping he’s actually learnt something since he was a dumb eighteen year old, excited to be having a normal college experience and excited to be queer.

Tommy lets him pull away with just a bit of a pout. He leaves one hand touching Ronan’s jaw (and occasionally his lips); the other plays with his fingers.

“I met Lovett in freshman year,” Ronan says, watching Tommy’s face without ever meeting his eyes. “Well, his freshman year. My honorary one. We hung out one day, got day-drunk and then slowly sobered up together, and I convinced myself he was the smartest, funniest, strangest guy I’d ever meet.” Tommy’s eyes, Ronan can tell by what the rest of his face is doing, have widened in realisation. Ronan twists his mouth into a self-deprecating smile. “I convinced myself I was half in love with him, and we spent the night together. Then in the morning he rejected me and didn’t even remember my name and I spent most of the year pining over him because I was pathetic, and then finally I got over it. And him.”

Ronan stops. Then waits. Tommy’s still holding onto his hand and his face but he’s stopped moving, and Tommy seems to be sort of staring off into space.

“Oh,” Tommy says. “Huh.”

He doesn’t sound pissed off, probably, but there’s only so much a person can glean from two sylables.

“I’m sorry,” Ronan says. “One of us really should have told you that first night. I assumed he had, actually. But I should’ve told you then and I’ve probably left it too late to only tell you now. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Tommy sits down next to Ronan, hand falling from his face to instead help the other one out in wrapping itself around Ronan’s one hand. The body language of which Ronan takes as a good sign, all things considered, though he’s not ready to put on an annual parade to his and Tommy’s beautiful future just yet.

“Well, you didn’t have to,” Tommy says. “We haven’t… talked yet. About what we’re doing. So there’d be no obligation for you to have told me.” He turns to Ronan, flashes him a quick smile — genuine, but unsteady. “Thank you, though.”

Ronan nods, feeling unsteady himself. “I wanted to have that conversation, but couldn’t until you knew. Is it weird for you?”

“Kind of,” Tommy admits, stroking his thumb across Ronan’s knuckles and back again. “Lovett’s really private about this kind of stuff, so… it’s the first time something like this has come up. It’s a little weird.” He pauses, looking at nothing in particular as a crease appears between his eyebrows. “Makes sense why you two were so awkward when you ‘met’, though. Do you still like him?”

Ronan bites his own cheek to keep a straight face.

“I didn’t even know him for a full twenty-four hours,” he says. “So no. Not like I like you.” He can’t stop himself from flashing a quick, shy smile at Tommy, and glows somewhere deep in his chest when it’s returned. “But. I hadn’t had sex before him, so I’ll always remember that fondly. If that’s a problem, you should say now.”

Tommy frowns. “Uh, no,” he says. “You get to remember whatever you want with as much fondness — or love, even — as you feel. Even if we decide we’re dating, I don’t have a monopoly on your past.”

Ronan’s mouth splits into a grin. He fights the urge to duck his head, loving instead how pink blooms across Tommy’s cheeks as he sees how good of an answer he just gave; how happy with him Ronan is.

“In that case,” Ronan says. “If you’re sure you’re okay with the Lovett thing, I’d like us to be dating. Boyfriends. If you’re up for that.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, leaning in for a kiss. “Yeah, I’m up for that,” he says again, pausing their kiss just long enough. He pulls back again a minute later. “Exclusive?” he asks, nudging Ronan’s nose with his own.

“Sure, okay,” Ronan says, through a grin and a kiss.

“Cool, good,” Tommy says, just as muffled. They say very little for a while, then. 

“You and Lovett, huh?” Tommy asks a little while later, his face performing an intense vacillation between emotions.

“You look like you still can’t decide if you find it hot or if you should be jealous.”

“Um. Maybe?” Tommy says it like a question but has squeezed his eyes shut and is laughing at himself already. “Shut up. Is that weird?”

Ronan shrugs, kissing Tommy’s neck. “I don’t care,” he says. “I’m into you and whatever you’re into.”

And maybe when he tells his mom about this she’ll be a little concerned and laugh at him a lot, but Ronan’s pretty sure she’ll also tell him to do whatever makes him happy.

And if what makes him happy right now is to make Tommy laugh and blush so badly he hides his face in his own hands by whispering certain things in his ear about Tommy’s best friend, then so be it.


	4. part ii: to behold and not be held

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to reiterate ahead of this chapter that this fic has a 'consent issues' warning! And it's an important warning! There's an argument to be made that it could be a higher warning, frankly.
> 
> Chapter title from _plastic_ by Moses Sumney.

“You know, I think the point of hate sex is to hate the other person, not what you’re doing.”

Lovett rolls his eyes hard, stomach dropping harder. He pulls away from Tim, getting his hand off Tim’s dick with some relief and a lot of burning self-hatred.

“I think the point of someone touching your dick is just to shut up and enjoy it,” Lovett tells him.

Tim leans up over Lovett on his elbow, pants around his knees and cock hard against his stomach. His shirt’s pushed up over an enviably flat belly which is dotted with freckles, and Lovett is glad there are objective reasons for them to dislike each other. Otherwise Tim would just be an attractive twink and there’d be no good reason for Lovett to hate him. He might even have to admit he enjoys his company.

Tim touches Lovett’s still very clothed thigh. “What do you want?” he asks, somewhere between attentive and teasing. Mocking. Smirking. As if they’re both in on a joke about them not being lovers and always have been. Cool. A big part of Lovett wants to roll away, make some excuse about needing to be at the station and oops he’d conveniently forgotten until it got awkward.

He settles for flinging an arm over his eyes and shrugging.

“Well, you clearly weren’t into that,” Tim says, actually sounding very reasonable. Like he’s gearing up to Organize them both. “I mean, I don’t need porn noises or anything, but a bit of enthusiasm is nice or else I may as well just do it myself. So what is it? Are you into something weird? Is it embarrassing? Can you only enjoy it if there’s a foot in your face, or something?”

Lovett drops his arm to glare at Tim. “No,” he says. “And if that was your version of non-judgemental, it needs some work.”

“Well…” Tim drops off his elbow so they’re both looking at the ceiling, not touching. “What do you like?”

Lovett shrugs again. This was a monumentally stupid idea. If Ronan and Tommy could just stop being so around and on top of each other, maybe Lovett wouldn’t be feeling crazy enough to have tried something this dumb. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“You’re not secretly straight, are you?” Tim asks. “Trying to fuck a young Republican can’t be that traumatic.”

“I’m not straight,” Lovett tells the ceiling. “I like guys.”

Tim very suddenly sits up, turns, looks at Lovett with bright, wide eyes, and says, “this isn’t your first time, is it?” Lovett laughs, short and sharp, and shakes his head no. “Fuck, good. Don’t have hate sex as your first time. Christ.”

“It’s not,” Lovett repeats. He slings his arm back over his eyes and says, “just. My last time wasn’t great, and I don’t really know what I like.”

“Oh,” Tim says. Then, in the careful way people talk to scared animals, he continues, “‘not great’, like…?”

“‘Not great’ like it wasn’t great,” Lovett tells him, heart beating so hard and fast he’s not sure it comes out as condescending as he’d like. “It was awkward. Not ‘not great’ like I didn’t want it and am traumatised. Why does everyone leap to that conclusion?”

Lovett peaks a glare and wishes he hadn’t; Tim’s look — concerned and cautious — is enough of an answer.

“Okay, well,” TIm says, with the air of someone ignoring something that is someone else’s problem. “What kind of porn do you like to watch? Maybe we could watch some and jerk each other off, or I’ll blow you. Whatever.”

Lovett’s stomach twists. He shrugs again, caught up on the end of the statement rather than thinking through the implications of his answer.

Tim frowns at him. “It’s something weird, isn’t it?” he asks, matter-of-factly. “It’ll take a lot to surprise me, you know. My roommate likes girls with big tits dressed as cows, so. I’m pretty inoculated against weird porn.”

Lovett scrunches his face at that image and thinks he’d probably have a lot of questions if he’d found this out at any other time. As it is, he just says, “ew,” then shuts up, studying the ceiling and trying to think if there’s anything that’s ever made him feel… anything.

He shrugs again, and says, “I don’t really… porn doesn’t really do it for me.”

Tim gives him an incredulous look. “You’ve been watching the wrong kind of porn.”

Lovett shrugs. “Maybe.”

He doesn’t think so.

Tim rolls his eyes, presumably at Lovett’s lack of enthusiasm, before asking, clearly as a last resort, “well, what do you wank to? What gets you off? Give me something to work with. Please.”

Stopping his near-automatic shrug this time, Lovett bites his lip rather than admit he doesn’t get himself off much, either. He does, but when he does it’s mostly quick and thoughtless. Once in a blue moon, if he’s got nothing to do or feels like treating himself or is suffering from a bout of insomnia, he’ll strip off, lie back on his bed, close his eyes, and touch himself slowly, gently — luxuriating in it for an hour or more until finally coming. He likes the build up, the anticipation, and that it’s just for him. He feels comfortable and self-indulgent, and it’s incredible, and then he comes and it’s over and he might not do it again for months.

On those days, if he thinks about anything, it’s nothing Tim would want to do.

(It’s sharing a bed with someone. Being hugged from behind, a chin on his shoulder, scratchy stubble on his skin. Sometimes it’s someone pushing him down on the bed, keeping him there, wanting him to stop moving. Other times he’s face to face with someone and they’re nudging his nose with theirs, maybe kissing his eyelids when they fall closed. It’s someone trailing a line of kisses across his belly, or just holding his hand.

In those fantasies, he might as well not have a dick.)

“You know what?” Lovett says, pushing himself up from Tim’s bed and away from him. He pulls his shirt down so it’s stretched a little too far, looking around for his shoes. “This was a mistake. Sorry. I’ll see you in class.”

His shoes are under Tim’s jacket. He grabs them, his own jacket, and leaves, not looking at Tim or listening to his half-indignant, half-concerned squawking.

Then he gets the fuck out of there.

~~~

“If Cheney were on fire, I wouldn’t stop to spit on him.”

Lovett enters the studio to the sound of Favs laughing and at the end of what, from Dan’s body language, must have been a good long rant on the evils of the current administration. He’s sad to have missed it. Could have saved up some of the best bits to use against Tim when he sees him in class tomorrow and needs to distract him.

“We’re on the fence, clearly,” Favs is saying as Lovett slips into the booth as quietly as possible. He gets quick waves from both Dan and Favs, smiles blandly at them and sits in the back of the booth on their old, literally patchwork couch. “When we come back, we’ll talk about the upcoming elections on campus, and it looks like we may have a special guest.”

He presses play on an ad and swivels his chair towards Lovett, who says, “I’m actually not here to talk,” and tips his head back against the couch back, closing his eyes.

There’s a pause in which Lovett’s sure Dan and Favs are making their surprise known to each other, but through which Lovett just ignores them, showing more restraint than he knew he had. Finally Dan says, “first time for everything, I guess,” and Favs adds, in a stage whisper, “over/under on twenty minutes before he wrestles the mic from your hands?”

Lovett rolls his eyes. One of Erin’s crochet monstrosities has been flung over the back of the couch. Lovett flings it over himself instead as he lies down, his back to Favs and Dan, burying his face in the back of the couch with the crocket blanket over his face so all the light and noise is muffled.

He hears Dan ask, _sotto voce_ , “does he have an assignment due?” and Favs murmur in the background, and then his eyes are closed and he’s pushing everything stressful away.

~~~

Lovett wakes to the couch dipping next to his head as someone slowly sits down, careful not to wake him. They’re whispering to someone, saying, “doesn’t he have a perfectly good bed at your place?” Something about the way they say it is less mocking than the words should be. There’s nearly some concern in there.

“He panic naps,” another voice replies, at a normal volume. Tommy. Lovett can hear him over near the mics, rustling papers and moving things around. Dan and Favs must have finished up and passed on to Studio B, leaving Studio A free for whatever Tommy’s up to. Since he’s now realising the person sitting next to him must be Ronan, Lovett’s just hoping that what Tommy’s up to has something to do with the station, not with having some kind of a date with the guy he’s obsessed with.

Lovett rolls over onto his back, getting himself free of his crochet swaddling with minimal embarrassing writhing, and turning his head to glare at Tommy. “I am not panic napping,” he tells them. Mostly Tommy, who already has eyebrows raised as if in preparation for this very argument. “I am resetting my brain so I can think. People in Europe sleep in the middle of the day _every day_. We’re the weird ones who don’t. Society would be better if we all just agreed that our brains work better if we sleep during the hot part of the day. Don’t give me that look, _Thomas_.”

Tommy is laughing at him. He glances at Ronan and seems to catch on him, eyes sparkling as he subtly pulls a series of micro-expressions that have Ronan letting out a chuckle.

“Ugh,” Lovett says, looking between them in exasperation. Ignoring the knot in his stomach. “You two’ve been dating for, what, a month? Fuck off with this talking-without-words shit. Get a room.”

Tommy laughs, missing the look Ronan gives Lovett, the one that Lovett isn’t sure how to interpret but makes him feel like he’s done something wrong. Maybe he has. It’s not really fair to be so obvious about this when he definitely gave Ronan his blessing to make Tommy disgustingly happy.

Which he is, as far as Lovett can tell. Which is great. It’s just, sharing a wall with Tommy has been a lot, since they got together.

“We did,” Ronan tells him, gesturing around. He leans forward and pulls out a notebook, a pen and a book that looks like something even Tommy’d fall asleep over. “Is there a reason why you didn’t?”

Lovett pretends he didn’t hear that. He squints at Ronan’s notes instead, trying to read his spidery hand writing. “Notes from class?” he asks.

“Notes for a piece I’m writing about _this_ guy,” Ronan replies, letting Lovett’s ignored question go and showing him the front of the book. Lovett has never heard of the guy the book mentions.

“For the Herald?” The Herald is the school paper, and Lovett knows Ronan is constantly working on something for it and is on the editing staff. He doesn’t think he’s ever picked up a copy himself except the two big stories it’d run on his Friday night shows and his, Favs and Tommy’s take over of the station.

“For the Washington Post,” Ronan responds, voice dry. Tommy snorts.

“Lovett, are you up for helping me record some ads?” Tommy asks. He invitingly pats the other swivel chair opposite him. “We could get ahead of schedule…”

“You say that like it’s an enticement,” Lovett informs him. He turns to Ronan. “Is his dirty talk this bad in bed, too?”

Ronan laughs, full throated, eyes crinkled at the edges as they dance between Tommy and Lovett. Tommy has gone bright red even as he rolls his eyes and turns back to the audio equipment in front of him.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Tommy says.

“Ronan can record them with you,” Lovett tells him. “Give the listeners the full newly-wed dynamic. They’ll eat it up. I’m not quite done with my panic nap.”

He lies back, hair brushing Ronan’s thigh. He starts repeating back every word he’s said in this conversation to himself and tells himself: _stop. flirting. idiot._

“Ronan cannot,” Ronan says, in a tone that’s near singsong. Talking in the third person about yourself should be an instant turn off. Lovett finds himself feeling about how Tommy looks in regards to it, though: fond, and confused about it. “I’m, uh… not exactly advertising… This.” He gestures mostly between him and Tommy, but a little around the room.

Lovett tilts his head back so he can see all of Ronan’s face, seeing the downturn to his lips and the quick, uncertain glance he throws Tommy, then Lovett. “Are you not out?” Lovett asks. “Shit, no judgment, Ronan, but tell people that, please. It’s not like I go around anouncing all the people I know are queer, but if you’re not out I don't want to fuck things up for you.”

Ronan shakes his head. Tommy, either deciding he’s not getting done what needs to be while this conversation is happening or wanting to be a supportive boyfriend, gets up and shoves Lovett’s feet out of the way so he has room to sit with the two of them on the couch. He twists a little so he’s watching Ronan, arm flung over the back so his fingers brush Ronan’s shoulder. He picks up Lovett’s feet by the ankles and pulls them back onto his lap.

“I’m out to the people who matter,” Ronan says. “My mom and family and all my friends, here. I just… don’t advertise it. It’s not really a big deal and if it gets out, it gets out, but occassionally I still get a reporter come want to talk to me about some dumb story or another and I’d rather not add fuel to the fire.”

Lovett frowns, noting Tommy’s supportive little smile and Ronan’s grateful one.

“Reporters?” Lovett says. “Why do you get reporters talking to you?”

Tommy laughs, telling Ronan, “I told you he had no idea.”

Ronan, looking a little perplexed and a little pleased, says, “do you not use Google?”

“What?” Lovett asks, automatic. “Who googles people they know in real life?”

Ronan laughs, Tommy joining in a second later. “Who doesn’t, as far as I’m concerned,” Ronan tells him. Then, “my mom’s an actress. And the, uh, my two possible biological fathers are famous, too. It’s calmed down, recently, since none of them have done anything that new and exciting for a while, but during my first degree it got really bad for a while when—”

“Your _first_ degree?” Lovett asks, voice going up. “What the fuck? This is a prank, right? That was way too many ridiculous things all at once.”

Ronan sends Tommy an amused look and Tommy laughs, saying, “hey, I told you. He’s oblivious.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Lovett tells him, still swaddled enough in his crochet cocoon that he can’t literally point a finger at him, so he does the best he can with his eyes, instead. “He was a guest on your show; of course you googled him.”

“I’m not pranking you,” Ronan assures him. He’s got this soft, slightly mocking look around his eyes that Lovett really doesn’t hate, but does hate how much he doesn’t hate it. “Tommy met me through Dan. We’re in the same Human Rights workshop. I’m studying Law.”

Lovett looks between Ronan and Tommy, disadvantaged from his horizontal position in the effort he’s making to figure out if Ronan is for real, right now, but coming to the conclusion that he… probably is, actually. Tommy loves an overachiever.

“How old are you?” Lovett asks. Then, “please tell me Tommy is your toy boy.”

Ronan laughs, shaking his head. “No, I’m twenty.”

“Which means you were, what, fourteen when you went to college?”

Ronan pulls a face, shaking his head. “No,” he says, “I was fourteen when I first applied to Law Schools.”

“Oh Christ, Tommy, you found someone even more…” Lovett frees an arm so he can gesture up and down Tommy’s too-tall body. “Tommy than you.”

Tommy and Ronan both laugh, looking equally delighted by how perplexed and thrown for a loop Lovett feels. Tommy puts a big hand over Lovett’s ankle and squeezes in warning, saying, “hey, I know you must mean that as a compliment, but you really need to work on your tone.”

Lovett makes a sound of disgust, watching as Ronan straightens his face and burries himself in his book, quickly looking engrosed. Overachiever.

“Didn’t you have ads to record?” Lovett asks Tommy, poking him in the belly with his socked toe. “Stop slacking.”

Tommy smiles indulgently, pushing himself up and Lovett’s feet to the floor only incidentally. “Going to help me, then?” Tommy asks, stretching. Lovett looks away, eyes catching on the furrow in Ronan’s brow instead.

He’s thinking of saying, “nah, too comfy,” and is opening his mouth to say just that when Ronan makes a noise between a sigh and a curious “hm”, twisting in his seat to get more comfortable. He ends up with one of his legs tucked up under him, thigh brushing against Lovett’s hair, free arm over the couch above him. Like he’s comfortable here, in Lovett’s space, and Lovett both loves and hates how comfortable he feels in Ronan’s space in return.

He looks at Tommy, feeling guilt pool in his stomach like vinegar — burning and acidic.

Tommy is watching him, looking fond. He does flick a glance between Lovett and Ronan — looks like he’s thinking — but he’s not suspicious. Or mad. _Why would he be?_ Lovett supposes. It’s only Lovett who thinks of being comfortable in someone’s space as this big of a deal.

“Sure,” Lovett says. He holds a hand up towards Tommy. “Pull me up, let’s get this ad show on the road.”

~~~

At home, later, Favs sends Emily to talk to him.

He’s been aware, and making an effort to ignore, that ever since he turned up in the studio the others haven’t let him be alone. First Tommy and Ronan, in the studio, there to be more organised than even Tommy insists on being, normally.

Then when the ads were done, they insisted he come to the new pizza place that’s just opened on campus and which Ronan is writing a review for - “ _this_ one is for the Herald,” he says, smirking in a way that says he knows Lovett doesn’t know how to tell, now, if he were full of shit over that Washington Post comment or not. Lovett gives Ronan notes on the pizza written on napkins — phrases scribbled out explaining how pizza outside of New York State is always a fundamentally bitter disappointment — and Ronan rolls his eyes good-naturedly but reads them, and then tells Lovett, “hey, you didn’t tell me you’re a writer. This is great. Would you mind if I use this?”

Lovett gets ten kinds of tongue-tied, utterly incapable of being as cool as he wishes he could be in the face of Ronan’s earnest compliment. Ronan interprets his silence wrong, saying, before Lovett can find his words, “I’ll give you the writing credit. We could co-write it?” And when Lovett gets himself together he says, channelling everything into faux-exasperation, “Christ, sure, fine, use it.”

Tommy looks on with amusement.

Then after the pizza they ‘bump into’ Favs and Emily. Ronan has to get to a meeting at the Herald so he and Tommy do this awkward hug-that-should-be-more goodbye. It makes Lovett’s heart ache for them a bit, so he focuses on Favs’ recounting of Dan’s latest stress rant about his thesis supervisor.

Ronan gone, Tommy’s side looks lonely. Lovett’s become so used to seeing Ronan there just in the short time they've been together. He stays there himself instead, knowing he’s a piss-poor substitute but that, if he manages to make Tommy laugh, it’s a job well done. So he does. And he’s so focused on Tommy, and his occassional forelorn glance at his cell phone, that he doesn’t realise they’re babysitting him until they get home and Favs suddenly decides he needs help going over the station budget when the alternative is Lovett playing video games alone in his room.

Favs hates going over the budget. He always leaves it to Lovett until the absolute last moment he needs to know about it.

Lovett lets him lie about it, giving him a look he hopes gets across how unimpressed he is. He takes great pleasure in getting as math heavy with it as he can, insisting to Favs that he has to understand the underlying principles to understand the end result, something they both know is a bare-faced lie. Em and Tommy bring them drinks and then settle on the other couch, discussing some of the reading for their shared ethics class.

Even Lovett gets bored of making Favs talk about the budget after an hour or so, retreating into the kitchen to make nachos while Tommy and Favs argue over which movie out of the ten or so they own they should watch.

And that’s when Emily follows him, looking a little apologetic about it. Which means she’s been put up to it.

“So…” she says, taking the cheese and grater off him to help him out. Lovett tips nachos onto a couple of baking trays, turning the stove on. This is about as cullinary as he gets, but he’s got this down to an art. Em touches his arm lightly, keeping it there until he looks at her, face blank. “How did your thing with Miller go?”

Lovett had sent her a text before meeting up with Tim. _meeting with the enemy,_ it’d read. _avenge me if I don’t return_. She’d been egging on their combative flirting for a couple of weeks and is overly invested in how things turn out, in Lovett’s opinion.

Lovett shrugs. Rumages through the refridgerator until he finds a couple of chillis.

Em is still watching him, arms folded, waiting.

“It didn’t, really,” Lovett reluctantly tells her. Her face falls. “It’s fine, he’s a Republican. It’s not exactly going anywhere, is it?”

“Well, it-” Em cuts herself off as Lovett raises an eyebrow, presumably stopping herself from mentioning again the Romeo and Juliet of it all, which, as Lovett has told her already, would only prove his point. She says, “I’m sorry, Lo,” instead. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Lovett says, keeping his hands busy chopping the chilli and poking Em to get on with the cheese grating. “It was only ever going to be a hook up, anyway, and it just wasn’t even that.”

“Uh, dumb,” Em says. “Wish you could’ve at least got some hot hate sex out of it.” She bumps his shoulder in comiseration as he snorts.

“You are over-invested in my love life,” he tells her. “Or at least my sex life. Which is a fruitless endevour, trust me.” He keeps his head ducked and his voice light.

She lets him prepare the food in silence, waiting until he’s putting the nachos in the stove to speak again. She’s leaning against the counter, arms folded and serious-faced as she asks, “Was he a dick?” She says it in a tone that says she’ll hit Tim for him if Lovett needs her to, which is sweet and makes him laugh.

“No, no more than always,” Lovett promises. “I’m just…” He shrugs, unsure how to finish that thought. The word that comes to mind, as always, is unsayable.

He can’t look at her but knows from her voice that her eyes must have gone soft and concerned, and Em reaches out to hover a hand over his shoulder as she says, “Lovett…” She stops herself from asking what’s wrong - he can nearly hear her thinking it and biting it down. “What can I do?”

“Nothing,” he says. Too quickly. She gives him a pleading look, one he struggles to resist and which is 50% of the reason Tommy and Lovett started calling Favs & Emily the Dream Team a week into them being together. He offers her a smile. “Not your problem, honestly,” he continues, and then, when she looks ready to object: “Just distract me.”

She smiles, briefly touches his shoulder, and says, “That we can do.”

~~~

They keep him distracted all the way up to Friday night, trading off on babysitting duties so seamlessly he hardly even notices.

Spiral _once_ over nearly failing a class and everyone acts like you’re on the edge after one little nap. Lovett would mock them for it if that didn’t involve acknowledging it. He does little things to thank them, instead. Watches Em’s favourite shitty TV with her one afternoon and doesn’t moan once; helps Favs pick out an outfit when he meets Emily’s parents; listens to Tommy tell him all about the book he’s been reading because Ronan recomended it and so that Tommy doesn’t feel inarticulate when discussing it with his boyfriend.

By Friday night, though, he’s ready to be trusted to be on his own, again. Tommy makes noises about coming along to the show, and normally Lovett would let him, sick of his company or not, but he knows Ronan’s going away for the weekend. He makes Tommy stay behind, telling him to make the most out of having a hot boyfriend. It should be a bonus that he therefore doesn’t have to see them being so into each other nothing else exists, and it is. It’s just not also a bonus that he is imagining them being that way in an empty appartment instead.

Jealousy is the dumbest emotion.

Lovett heads to the Union bar for six, meeting Travis and Elijah, there to help him set up the mics, and keeps too busy to continue whatever spiral his friends think he’s in until the end of the show.

Ira, who has been overtly flirting with the Chairperson of the LGBT Society the whole time they were on stage, surprises Lovett by hustling him over to the bar after their last round of applause. Lovett recognises the bartender as a guy Ira sleeps with semi-regularly, and they must be on good terms right now because Ira leans over the bar to give him a peck on the lips and their order, and a minute later they both have mojitos in their hands.

Ira then pulls Lovett over to a booth right at the back of the bar, pulling him down to sit. He seems to have known it would be freeing up through some sort of second sense.

“What’s this in aid of?” Lovett asks, instantly suspicious that this is Favs or Tommy’s doing. Annoyed if it is, because Ira is _his_ friend, mostly, and he doesn’t need his best friends telling his other friends that he’s crazy, thanks.

“Drink up,” Ira tells him, downing a third of his own drink. He waits until Lovett does the same, then says, “I was speaking to Tim Miller last night-”

“Shit.”

“-and he told me he thinks you’re secretly, uh, kind of a baby gay, Lovett.” Ira has pinned Lovett with calm, searching look, stiring his mojito contemplatively. “He said you’re shy. And I told him that couldn’t possibly be true, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t know of a single guy you’ve slept with in the three years I’ve known you.”

Lovett bites the inside of his cheek. He thinks, _how does a person not look like a rabbit in headlights in a moment like this?_ before giving up the attempt. He says, “uh, there’s a reason for that.”

Ira leans back. Lovett doesn’t know if he’s doing it deliberately, but he’s giving Lovett more space. Making sure he’s not looming. “Huh,” he says, like Lovett’s near-admission is just faintly interesting. “Are you a virgin?” he asks.

Oh, this is getting old.

“As I told Tim,” Lovett says, with, in his mind, the patience of a fucking saint. “And I am sure he told you: I am not.” He fishes out an icecube, crunching it between his teeth in a cold burst of satisfaction. “And I really don’t want to go through all this again,” he continues. “I’ve tried it, it was shitty but not the really bad kind of shitty, and I’m just going to have to, I don’t know…” He hesitates, coming closer to acknowledging the lump in his throat that he’s been studiously ignoring than he has since it took up residence there at the beginning of the week. “I’ll have to take Tim’s advice and watch more porn.”

_Maybe I should take improv classes,_ he thinks, hearing how unconvincing he sounds and seeing Ira’s unchanged look of perplexity and concern. Ira blinks, though; takes a sip of his drink and shrugs with one shoulder.

“Normally you know I’d tell you never to take Tim’s advice,” he says. “But in this case, he might not be wrong.”

“Wash your mouth out,” Lovett tells him. “Tim’s always wrong. It’s part of his charm.”

Ira laughs obligingly and for a good half an hour Lovett thinks the conversation is over. They talk about the show, about Ira’s bartender, about Kara and Louis and Tommy, Dan and Favs. They discuss their plans for over Spring Break and things at the station and things that’re so far off the topic of sex that Lovett nearly does an actual spittake when Ira says, out of the blue, “Or… hey, I have an idea that doesn’t involve porn.”

They’re on their second drink now, and Lovett hadn’t been planning on getting more than pleasantly buzzed but is now wondering how many minutes of making out would get him five sours from Ira’s friendly bartender.

“Look,” Ira says, using a sad looking cocktail umbrella to point at Lovett. “I like Tim. He’s a cocky shit but he owns it, and I respect that.”

“Okay…” Lovett says, bracing himself.

“What he is not, though,” Ira continues. “Is a… giving partner in bed. Maybe you just need someone to focus on you, and just on you, so you can figure out what you like.”

Lovett comes close enough to spilling his drink over the table that he has an easy distraction for a moment, steadying his glass and wiping up what did spill with his sleeve. Ira, gently, takes his drink and moves it away from him.

Lovett holds himself still. “Ira,” he says. “I’m flattered, but I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Okay,” Ira agrees, placid as ever. “Why not, though?”

Lovett finds himself staring at Ira, frowning. “Because… because I’m…”

He still can’t bring himself to say it. What he is.

Ira, kindly and in a quiet, calm voice Lovett has to strain to hear over the noise of the rest of the bar, says, “I love sex. I like you. I want you to be happy, and based on this text Favs sent me today…” Ira flashes Lovett his phone, pressing buttons until he shows a text which reads: _please look after Lovett after LOLI tonight. we’re worried! x._ Lovett contemplates killing Favs when he gets back. “…you haven’t been.”

Voice coming out faint, Lovett asks, “he puts kisses on your texts?”

“It’s an inside joke,” Ira says with fondness.

_You have inside jokes with Favs?_ Lovett thinks, but doesn’t say.

He takes his drink back from Ira, taking a sip. Then he tells him, “I’m not interested in pity sex.”

“Who’s pitying you? I get to come, you get to come, we both have a good time,” Ira explains. “I’ve been told I’m very good. And if it doesn’t work out, you know I won’t judge you for it or end up with hurt feelings. I can’t be all things to all people, after all.” The grin he gives Lovett can only be described as rogueish, really. Lovett hates how charmed he is. “But I’m very up for trying to be what you want, if you’re okay with trying, too.”

Lovett stands up. He tells Ira, “I need to pee,” and is all set to leave him sitting there.

He gets two steps away before turning back. He doesn’t look at Ira as he walks up to the table, grabbing his drink and downing the last of it. His heart is thudding in his chest and he doesn’t really know why Ira being kind to him because he knows is making him feel like this, as if he’s short of breath, but he wishes he’d had a choice in Ira knowing this much about him, he guesses.

The glass cracks back down on the table with more force than Lovett had meant. He looks Ira in the eyes, says, “maybe. Yes. I don’t know.”

Ira smiles, kindly, and tells him: “go pee. If you want to, kiss me when you come back. Otherwise I’ll never mention it again. Okay?”

Lovett can’t look away from him for a moment, not until he nods, once, and makes himself turn away.

He’s in the washroom for too long, psyching himself up, until he’s sure he knows what he wants. Which is to try, at least one more time.

Ira turns towards him as he slides back into the booth, making it easy for Lovett to kneel on the seat and kiss him.

~~~

Later:

Ira is naked, lain out on his bed, unselfconscious in a way that makes Lovett, still wearing his shirt and boxers, feel inadequate. He’s running his fingers through Lovett’s hair because Lovett had said, “that feels good;” one of the only things he’d been certain he liked and kept liking even as things got too intense for him. And because Ira seems to think if he lets go of Lovett, Lovett is going to freak out.

“You’ll find what you like,” Ira tells him.

Lovett feels steadier, more comfortable in his own skin, than he had with Ronan or with Tim, after. So that’s progress. It’s just because Ira had been so kind, and good at distracting him, and checked in after each new thing they tried until eventually Lovett said, “okay, I’m done,” and Ira had immediately rolled away to give him space.

“What if I don’t?” he asks, as hollow voiced as he he feels hollow chested.

Ira hums contemplatively, tugging gently at his hair. Lovett settles, something calming about that, about how the span of Ira’s hand covers the crown of Lovett’s head. It does _something_ for him. Just not what it should do.

“You know what?” Ira says, voice soft and gentle, as if he doesn’t want to spook Lovett. “Take it from someone who likes it _a lot_ : sex isn’t everything.” Lovett snorts, suddenly finding this whole situation absurd. He’s twenty, he’s in bed with a gorgeous, naked man who really does seem to know his way around the male body, and all he wants is to have his hair petted. And it sure as fuck feels like sex is a lot of things.

Ira makes a sound in response; almost a tut. He pulls gently at Lovett’s hair again and adds, “You’ll be happy in another way.”

Lovett forces a tight smile. Says, “yeah, ‘course. I’ll be a career guy and the fun uncle. Who needs sex? More time for gaming, right?”

But he’s thinking of all the things he’ll never do, and how alone he’ll be, and he just thinks, _I’m too young to feel this stuck._

~~~

Lovett is deep into _FFXI_ , headphones blocking everything out as he lies on his belly so he can see the tiny TV at the end of his bed without his glasses, when Tommy opens his bedroom door.

“Jesus, Lovett,” he says, looking around at the room. “Have you seen the floor since last Christmas?”

Lovett pauses the game but leaves his headphones in, leaving everything just a bit muffled. “It’s called _spring_ cleaning for a reason.”

Tommy rolls his eyes, stepping carefully over Lovett’s strewn clothes and a small stack of books.

“Is this why you never bring anyone back here?” Tommy asks. He straightens out the sheets on Lovett’s bed so he has somewhere to sit and does with a sigh.

Lovett’s had plenty time to school his face in the meantime, but Tommy catches the edge of Lovett’s startle and blushes, saying, “I didn’t mean… Like, y’know. You never invite friends from home to stay. Or whatever.”

Lovett props himself up on an elbow, raising an eyebrow at Tommy.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Tommy shrugs. “Nothing, really,” he says, lying more obviously than is in character. He’s looking at everything but directly at Lovett. “How was the show last night?”

“You mean you didn’t listen?” Lovett is about to let it drop — is already smiling teasingly — when he clocks Tommy open his mouth, close it, open it again, and wet his lips.

“Uh, yeah, partly,” Tommy says. The flush across his cheeks either hasn’t faded or has been renewed.

“Thomas Veitor,” Lovett says, thinking about Ronan going away for the weekend and the permission he’d all but given Tommy to enjoy the goodbye last night, finding it easy to play up shock. “Did you have sex while listening to my show?”

Tommy studies the ceiling. “Well,” he says. “Would you rather we did or would you rather we didn’t listen?”

Lovett is surprised into a laugh. “Sophie’s choice,” he replies, distracted for a moment from images going through his head of Tommy and Ronan going at it as his voice filtered through around them, riffing about something dumb. He did a bit about the bus pass price increase last night, and now wonders where Tommy’s hands were in that moment.

“Is that what this is?” Lovett asks after coughing to clear his throat. “You don’t miss him already, do you?”

Tommy, looking at his own hands on his knees, shrugs. “No,” he says, mouth twisted in a pathetic frown.

“He’s back on, what, Tuesday?” Lovett asks, and Tommy nods, giving Lovett a quick, unconvincing smile and shrugging again.

“I know,” Tommy tells him. “It’s pathetic.”

“Yeah,” Lovett agrees, freeing an arm from under himself to pat Tommy ineffectually on the back. Tommy smiles, head still bowed.

“It’s gross,” Tommy adds. “I never expected to feel like this about him. It’s gross and it’s amazing.”

“Don’t you dare give me a lovesick sigh, Tommy,” Lovett warns.

Tommy laughs, eyes crinkling. It’s just the contrast that makes Lovett’s belly swoop.

“Every time we’re not together, I keep expecting the bubble to burst,” Tommy says, voice low, speaking to his hands again. “And I really like this bubble.”

Lovett, faced with an earnest Tommy — a Tommy who is falling in love, if he isn’t there already, — can’t bring himself to make a joke.

“I think you’ll like what comes after just as much,” Lovett says, surprising himself and definitely surprising Tommy, if the wide-eyed look he gets is any indication. “Being in love’s hard, I guess, but still gross and amazing.”

Tommy considers him for a long moment while Lovett shifts and thinks longingly of slipping back into his game, away from this conversation and Tommy’s sad-bright-fond eyes which are making him be all kinds of intensely honest.

“Have you…” Tommy hesitates, then firms his jaw. Lovett does not let himself get distracted by it. “Look, I don’t know what’s put you in this mood where you’re ready for a heart-to-heart, but I’m not above taking advantage. Have you been in love?”

Lovett takes his headphones out, leaving behind the pretence that he’s going back to his game any time soon. He makes sure to look at Tommy with a not-quite glare, getting across how unimpressed he is.

“Does this room look like the room of someone who’s in love?” he asks. He doesn’t need to gesture at anything in particular. His room is a mess. He’s a mess. He’s the gross one of the two of them, pining over his best friend (and fuck Ronan for being right) and not having what even the shittiest guy on campus could give to a relationship to offer him.

“I don’t mean now, necessarily,” Tommy clarifies. Lovett doesn’t reply and Tommy doesn’t push, just watching as Lovett rolls his eyes and then pillows his head on his arms. He closes his eyes, wondering if he can pretend to fall asleep and whether he can get away with actually doing so. Softly, playing into Lovett’s deception, Tommy asks, “are you okay?”

Lovett, keeping his eyes closed, bites the inside of his lip. Ira’s kind face and hand in his hair go through his brain, and he starts to think _not really_ and makes the decision, on a tired whim, to shake his head slightly.

He’s so tuned in to Tommy next to him that he hears the minute hitch in Tommy’s breath. Hears him shift, like he’s uncomfortable. He gets the strong instinct to speak and break the spell between them. To say something like, “I’m fine, go away; you’re ruining my Saturday sleep schedule.”

He’s tired, though.

And nothing Lovett could say or do right now is going to make Tommy’s worry disappear. There’s no protecting Tommy from the feeling when he’s decided there’s something to worry about.

Lovett thinks, and then says, “I fucked up and broke my heart.”

It’s a nice line. He’s probably accidentally stolen it from a song, but it doesn’t matter in the face of Tommy making a soft, hurt sound as if on Lovett’s behalf and using a gentle hand to touch Lovett’s back, pressing down slightly between his shoulder blades. Being an anchor Lovett hadn't known he was craving.

“I didn’t even know you liked someone,” Tommy says, voice hushed. Lovett shrugs as much as he can under Tommy’s hand and while horizontal.

“I didn’t want it to be happening,” he offers. Reaching out an arm to fumble around until he finds the controller, keeping his eyes closed, Lovett presses it to Tommy’s knee and says, “wake me up if you die more than ten times.” Their fingers brush as Tommy wraps his hand around the controller before Lovett lets go.

“I wish you didn’t feel like this,” Tommy tells him, whispering. Lovett silently agrees but is unimpressed with Tommy continuing a conversation he couldn’t make it much clearer he’s opting out of. He opens one eye to look up at Tommy.

“It’s fine,” he tells Tommy. “I’m not dying.”

Closing his eye again, Tommy’s sad smile is the last thing he sees.

“You deserve a bubble,” Tommy tells him. For some reason, hearing that brings a lump to Lovett’s throat and makes his eyes prickle. He turns his head away so Tommy can’t see him scrunch his eyes closed to fight off all these dumb, unfair, uncontrollable emotions. _Bubble’s long popped, babe,_ Lovett thinks.

Tommy remains a safe, steady presence next to him as Lovett settles, head turned away but hand touching Tommy’s thigh. It’s an incidental touch, but once it happens he can’t bring himself to pull away. He reaches for sleep as an escape from a dangerous, loaded conversation that Lovett is not emotionally ready to have. Not now. Not today. Not after last night or the last month or ever so far in his life.

When he wakes up it’s to a soft curse from Tommy above him, the faintly changing light from the TV meaning Tommy’s still playing, and to find his face hidden against Tommy’s hip.

_Fuck_ , he thinks. _This is less than ideal_.

He’s not so sure that’s true, though. Maybe this is just exactly what he wants.

~~~

During the show on Monday, while Tommy and Favs are trading off on a rant about Bush’s big tax cuts and are therefore completely absorbed, Lovett sneaks Tommy’s phone from the table, finds Ronan’s number, and sends it to himself.

The phone is back on the table in time for him to correct Favs’ math.

_what’re your plans when you get back to campus?_ Lovett texts.

Then, cursing himself, he adds, _this is lovett_.

Minutes later, Ronan texts back.

**Hi Lovett, nice to hear from you. How was your weekend?**

Lovett rolls his eyes.

_your boyfriend and i mutually babysat each other. stop stalling, some of us are on top up._

**Did Tommy give you my number?**

_unimportant. what are you doing when you get back?_

**I don’t have any concrete plans yet. I get back at 5 so food probably.**

Lovett flips his phone over and over in his hands, thinking through his next move. Favs glances at him, confused at why he’s so unfocused, and aims his next question at him. Lovett focuses on the show until it ends, then leaves Tommy and Favs grabbing coffee before their station meeting to hunch over his phone.

_you should make sure you see tommy asap._

The response is immediate.

**Why? Is something wrong?**

Lovett types a couple of different replies, deleting all but the most honest of them.

_he’s lovesick. it’s disgusting. i don’t want you two to waste time not wanting to look too eager to each other._

Lovett puts his phone in his back pocket, going in search of his cohosts and the caffeine they haven’t yet brought to him, and doesn’t read Ronan’s replies until much later.

**Thank you.**

**You’re actually a really good guy, aren’t you?**

**I’m the same about him. I won’t waste it.**

~~~

Lovett realizes okaying the rubiks cube party was a terrible, bad, no good idea just as Ronan is stepping out of his blue slacks to swap them with Emily’s green skirt. And he realises it was such a terrible, bad, no good idea because he cannot look away from the pale, spindly legs that clearly have been exposed to nothing close to sunlight in recent memory. They’re nearly transparent, they’re so pale. They’re the perfect geek’s legs.

Lovett is horribly endeared.

To make things worse, Ronan’s legs stay on display as he pulls Emily’s skater-style skirt over his hips. He strikes a pose, flushed, though it could just as easily be from booze as from self-consciousness. He’d done the gentlemanly thing and given Em the slacks to slip into before she removed the skirt, so he’s standing there looking uncomfortable and vulnerable for several moments. During which Lovett watched, cursed himself, and wondered where this feeling disappears to when he actually gets touched.

“Can I…?”

A big, familiar hand jerks Lovett out of his mindless staring as Tommy smiles down at him, gesturing to Lovett’s hat. It’s red, and so is most of Tommy now, though he started out the party appropriately multi-coloured. At Lovett’s nod, Tommy lifts the hat and puts it on his own head.

“You’re not a hat person,” Lovett tells him, unable to sound anything other than hopelessly fond.

“Fuck you,” Tommy tells him pleasantly. Tommy looks him over critically, presumably assessing what clothing Lovett came in and what he’s swapped for so he knows what to offer in return. The white dress should really give it away. “Here, hang on.” He pushes his drink into Lovett’s hand before stripping off his sweater.

Lovett is assaulted by his another flash of pale skin as Tommy’s shirt rides up.

Shoving his sweater into Lovett’s other hand, Tommy starts unbuttoning a white shirt he’s wearing underneath it, and Lovett’s night goes from bad to worse.

He has no idea where to look, but does notice Tommy has freckles on his shoulders.

Someone — not Lovett; he’s not completely lost it — wolfwhistles. Tommy flips them off, though he seems unable to stop smiling. He’s been that way all week, ever since Tuesday night at barely 6pm when Ronan showed up at their door with all his luggage and said, “hey, miss me?”

Now, standing there shirtless, Tommy takes his sweater back and trades it for his shirt. Lovett pulls the shirt on more for something to do that isn’t stare than with any thought, leaving it open over his dress. “Thanks,” he tells Tommy, still avoiding looking at him as Tommy negotiates pulling his sweater back on without dislodging Lovett’s cap. “I think this outfit is really starting to come together.”

Tommy grins at him on the other side of being fully clothed again. “It suits you,” Tommy tells him.

Lovett should strike a pose just like Ronan did. He should have a mask for the way his chest feels tight when Tommy compliments him, but he’s never been able to build up an immunity. And he’s using a lot of his energy on not staring at Tommy’s collarbones, now exposed with his shirt gone. He scoffs, blushing, and says, “yeah well, you look like an Abercrombie model dressed as one of Santa’s Elves.”

Tommy’s surprised splutter of a laugh sees Lovett looking helplessly up at him, smiling back.

The sleeves of this shirt are ridiculous, actually, falling well over Lovett’s wrists, and a moment later when Ronan joins them, once he and Tommy have returned from the place they go when they grin hello at each other, Ronan plucks at Lovett’s sleeve and says, “here. Tommy, get the other one,” and starts carefully folding over Lovett’s shirt sleeve.

“I’m not incapapable,” Lovett protests, but Tommy has already taken hold of his other wrist and started to do the same. They both flick glances at each others’ work, showing an attention to detail that is not warranted by the task. And Lovett is left standing between them, bemused and flustered, their fingers brushing the skin on the inside of his arms so many times his shoulders ache with the tension of not shivering by the time they’re done.

“C’mon, let’s get drinks,” Tommy says, and for some reason he’s talking to both of them, not just Ronan, so Lovett is pulled along in their orbit as they get drinks and hang out. Ronan tells them both a story about his first college party at thirteen and Lovett trades that story with one about Favs dragging him to a frat party in freshman year. Tommy looks on and interjects with fondly sarcastic comments, and it’s easy. Comfortable.

After a while Lovett starts feeling like he should probably move on, leave them to it, so he waits for a moment where Tommy and Ronan are laughing, eyes catching on each other’s grins, to attempt an escape.

He’s not expecting Ronan to grab onto his wrist before he can do it.

“Hey,” Tommy says. “Stay; hang out with us.”

Lovett looks between the look on Tommy’s face — sincerity, maybe — and Ronan’s gentle hand around his wrist. “We’ve hung out all week,” he says.

“Are you sick of us?” Ronan asks, endearingly confident that it’s not true even as he says it. Smug, beautiful bastard. Tommy, next to him, looks less sure of himself, but that’s because Tommy’s an oblivious idiot.

“Sure,” Lovett says, deadpan. “Sick of everything about you. When will you stop insisting on including me in things? You know how I hate that.”

This is Tommy’s queue to roll his eyes. Lovett is waiting for him to do it, and then he’ll laugh, and Ronan will let go, and Lovett will stay with them for a little while longer until he can catch someone’s eye and find some kind of distraction.

“Stay.”

Tommy says it so sincerely and simply that it stops Lovett’s brain still. It floors him, for a moment, leaving him standing, looking between them, unable to say anything. Ronan’s smile becomes soft. Sweet. Encouraging. Tommy just keeps watching him.

And finally Lovett finds the reboot switch in his own brain and shrugs. Says, “this thing where you babysit me must be getting old.” He figures facing it head on will be easier in the long run.

“What?” Tommy asks, and he’s a good liar. He tilts his head, frowning, as if he has no idea what Lovett’s talking about. “We just want to hang out,” he says. “If you… I mean, you don’t have to. You can— It’s fine.”

“You’re going to break his heart,” Ronan says, tone making it clear it’s a joke, eyes sparkling as he looks between them. _Some joke_ , Lovett thinks, feeling a little wounded in the heart from Tommy’s puppydog expression.

He rolls his eyes. “He’ll be fine,” he says, but even as he does he’s relenting, moving back into their space and leaning his hip against the wall next to Tommy. Taking his solo cup, he pushes it into Tommy’s stomach and says, “well, least you can do is go get us some drinks, you monster.”

“I’m the monster?” Tommy asks, spoiling the effect through his broad grin. He takes the cup, gives Ronan a quick parting kiss through which Ronan asks for a vodka coke, and makes Lovett jump with an equally quick squeeze to his shoulder before darting through the brightly coloured crowd on his way to source more drinks. He doesn’t need to ask Lovett’s drink order, he supposes.

And then Lovett’s left alone with Ronan.

They’ve spent bits and pieces of time alone together over the last month and change, though usually they have something other than talk for Lovett to distract himself with rather than fixate on any awkward silences. Like notes from class or a TV or his laptop. Parties, though, are designed to be excruciating for people left alone with their best friend’s boyfriend slash one time fuck.

After a moment in which Lovett curses himself for giving Tommy his cup because now he has nothing at all to do with his hands, Ronan says, “do you want my socks?”

“What?” Lovett stares at him, watching as Ronan visibly realises what he’s just said and his normal composure crumbles. He tightens his lips as if wishing he could retroactively stop them from having opened. “ _No,”_ Lovett says. “Of course not. Have you been talking to Tim? I do not have a foot thing.”

“Who’s Tim?” Ronan asks, frowning. He stares back at Lovett. His expression is slowly transforming into the slightly confused, almost delighted expression of someone realising they’re no longer the lone weirdo in a conversation. “And why does he think you have a foot thing?” he asks.

“Tim does not matter,” Lovett tells him. “Why would I want your socks?”

“Well.” Ronan tries for a smile and almost manages to get all the way there. “They’re the only white thing I’m wearing.”

Lovett laughs, relieved and not quick enough to stamp down on the bubbling endeared feeling welling up as he smiles at Ronan. “I’ll pass, but I appreciate the thought,” he says. “And anyway, I gave my only green thing to Louis an hour ago. I like to keep these things equal.”

“Sensible,” Ronan says, looking relieved to put the sock conversation behind them.

“So,” Lovett says, teetering on the edge of asking something that’s probably inadvisable for the sake of his already bruised heart. What else are they going to talk about, though? _Hey, Ronan,_ he imagines saying. _Are you a Final Fantasy fan? No? Not much time to game in among being a genius and a perfect boyfriend and also sort-of hereditarily famous, huh?_ So instead he asks, bracing himself, “so, how’s it going with Tommy?”

Ronan’s smile grows a little, almost like it’s involuntary, but he takes a moment to consider Lovett before he says anything. He shifts to lean against the same wall Lovett’s leaning on so they’re properly facing each other, probably looking a lot more like they’re hanging out intentionally and not just incidentally. It’s a lot, having all of Ronan’s attention on him. Lovett has a vivid sense memory of a night two years ago when one conversation with a younger Ronan at a party a lot like this had convinced Lovett that this guy was the most interesting guy he’d ever met.

_I need an escape valve from my own head,_ Lovett thinks bitterly.

“Really well,” Ronan says. “I really like him.” He pauses for a moment, watching Lovett as he tries a smile on for size, nods, and says, “cool, that’s good.” Ronan says, “Jon,” which is itself a minor shock to the system. Then, “do you still feel the same as you did?”

Feeling suddenly trapped and slightly panicked, Lovett looks around to check if Tommy’s anywhere near them. He isn’t — he’s chatting with Dan at the drinks table — but seeing him doesn’t exactly settle Lovett, and he turns back to meet Ronan’s eyes as he says, “take a wild guess.”

It’s not a good answer, but it’s better than the truth. Which would be something along the lines of, _no, it’s worse, and then there’s you_. Evasion is a much better idea.

Ronan looks over in Tommy’s direction for a brief moment, frowning. Jealous, maybe, though that doesn’t seem very Ronan-like. Looking back to Lovett, he reaches a tentative hand out and hovers it over Lovett’s upper arm, maybe copying a move he’s seen Tommy do a thousand times.

“I’m sorry,” Ronan says. “Do you need me to… I could tone us down. In front of you.”

Lovett seriously thinks about it for a moment, looking at Ronan’s frown as he stands there in Emily’s skirt with his vulnerable, pale legs on show. He imagines Ronan offering Tommy platonic-looking half-hugs instead of kisses in front of him, or catching himself before he says something sappy, and imagines Tommy’s confused frown or, worse, his understanding as he flicks a quick, resentful glance in Lovett’s direction. He’d pull back, too, if he knew.

“No, don’t,” Lovett tells him. “Please don’t.” He worries his bottom lip for a moment, meeting Ronan’s _are you sure?_ look. “I actually don’t think I’m jealous,” Lovett admits, holding back the _not like that_ that should follow and would mean several different, connected things. Ronan still looks sceptical and Lovett can’t blame him, so he adds, “you make him happy.” It’s the best explanation he has to hand and is willing to offer.

Ronan doesn’t stop watching him so, so closely as Lovett forces himself to smile, trying to think of any way he can end this part of their conversation. It’s taken Tommy far too long to get drinks, and they have proven to be partial to excruciatingly big small talk.

Lovett sees Tommy making his way back, finally, feeling a relief at his stupid, dumb face that’s unfamiliar in this new age of acknowledging his feelings. Ronan just has time to say one thing before Tommy’s in earshot. He ducks close to Lovett, touching his elbow with his fingertips and speaking close to his ear as he does so as if he wants to make Lovett shiver.

“You know you could, too, right?”

He pulls away, giving Lovett one heavy look as he turns to Tommy and accepts his drink with a grin.

Lovett, his stomach suddenly on another plane of existence, brings his hand to touch his tingling elbow.

“Everything okay?” Tommy asks, looking between them. He lingers on Lovett, presumably because Lovett looks like he feels: like he has in fact had a small anvil dropped on his head. He thinks about telling Tommy, _your boyfriend is on a one man campaign to give me a heart attack._

“Your boyfriend offered me his socks,” he instead tells Tommy.

His laughter at the face Tommy pulls is a little hysterical. But. No one could blame him.

~~~

Lovett spends most of the party, then most of the night, then most of the next day thinking about Ronan’s fingertips touching him and what he’d said. He puzzles over it like it’s a riddle. Like it’s a logic puzzle, which have always been one of his favourite parts of math.

Any way he looks at it, though, it doesn’t work.

> If H = happiness

> and Ronan + Tommy = TommyH

> and Lovett + Tommy = TommyH

> then it follows that Ronan = Lovett

Which is dumb. This is the kind of dumb non-math Lovett makes fun of at any opportunity offered up to him, but there’s a certain elegance to how fucked up and nonsensical it all is that feels like petty vindication.

He comes to the conclusion that he needs to spend less time with them. He promises himself he’s going to find anything else at all to occupy himself for the rest of the weekend.

And imediately breaks his promise to himself that night.

~~~

It’s not his fault that he falls asleep on the couch.

Favs is out with Emily and obviously asked Tommy to make sure Lovett ate, because he knocks on Lovett’s bedroom door at 7ish and says, “I’m making pasta. Do you want some?” It’s not worth the argument to claim he’s not hungry and also there is free food on offer, so Lovett makes the mistake of leaving his room.

Ronan arrives with a diatribe on kids not making their deadlines on the paper (the school one) just in time to join them for food, so they eat in the lounge together, and when they’re done Lovett offers to take one of the stories Ronan’s worried about not finishing off his hands and Ronan looks nearly ready to kiss him. They sit on the couch together, laptops on their knees, as Lovett types up this kid’s notes on Union spending into something approaching an article. Ronan is busy with his own story, while Tommy settles down on Ronan’s other side, puts a movie on, and pretends he’s reading over notes from class.

The first movie is ending just as Lovett finishes up what he’s writing and passes it Ronan’s way to read and pick apart, so he and Tommy pick out another one.

It’s comfortable on the couch. The room is dimly lit as ever — they probably won’t change the bulbs in the main lights until they move out, now — and it feels much later than it is. Lovett blinks, and it lasts a little long, and he should definitely get up and go to his room. But he doesn’t.

Next time he opens his eyes, the TV is off and Ronan’s laptop is closed, so all the light they have is coming from a lamp in the corner of the room.

“Shhhh,” he hears, before feeling shifting movement on the couch.

“We shouldn’t…”

That’s Tommy, whispering, sounding—

“Fuck, you’re hot,” Ronan whispers back, and then there’s a muffled groan as though Tommy has pressed his mouth into something to keep from making too much noise. “What’s got you so hot and heavy, huh?” Ronan asks, a little less quiet but still definitely trying not to wake Lovett up. He should move. He needs to move or maybe die right where he is. Ronan adds, “it couldn’t be anyone on this couch, could it?”

Tommy doesn’t muffle his groan that time, and the movement of the couch immediately stills as Ronan and Tommy wait, hardly even seeming to breathe.

Lovett sits up. He blinks at them, feigning having just woken up, and sees that Ronan is sitting in Tommy’s lap, knees either side of his hips and arms slung around his neck.

“Sorry,” Lovett tells them. “I’ll, uh…” He gestures towards his room and gets up, heading that way.

A hand hits his thigh, fingers wrapping round it as much and as gently as they can, and it’s more the shock than the pressure that makes Lovett stop. Turn back.

In the meantime, Ronan finds his wrist. He’s looking at Tommy as he holds into Lovett in a firm grip. Lovett can only see partial expressions with the light how it is — they’ll be able to see his whole face with where he’s standing, where he’s only getting a sliver of a profile from both of them — but he can see enough to tell they’re trying to communicate without talking.

Lovett licks his lips and makes himself ask, “Ronan?”

Ronan turns towards him, the visible sliver of his face revealing, Lovett thinks, a smile. Ronan slides his hand down from Lovett’s wrist to cup Lovett’s hand and brings his hand up and close, until it’s so close to his lips Lovett can feel Ronan’s breath across his palm as he inhales and exhales.

“Ronan?” He says again. He should pull away. He should go. He can’t see Tommy’s eyes or expression but Tommy has to be able to see what’s happening, and Lovett doesn’t know why Tommy hasn’t freaked out yet. Maybe he’s as frozen as Lovett is.

Ronan kisses Lovett’s palm.

“Stay?” he asks.


	5. interlude: favs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just realised i'm away this weekend (oops) and don't know if i'll be able to post. so. here. sorry to all of the people i personally attacked by leaving that last chapter on a cliffhanger - hope this early interlude makes up for it (even if it doesn't clear everything up) :)

_where are you?_

_favs. i need you to answer._

_you’re not picking up your phone_

_why aren’t you picking up your phone?_

“Shit,” Jon says, reading Lovett’s texts, sending his heart suddenly beating hard in his chest. “Shit!”

Em, sitting against his chest where they’re stretched out on her couch, turns, frowning, and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Jon says. “It’s Lovett.”

He’s just thumbing to call Lovett back when another two texts come through together.

Tommy says, **_text if you see Lo, please! tell him we’re sorry!!_**

Lovett says, _that dive off a cliff you’ve been worried about happened. where. the fuck. are. you._

Jon’s eyes close and he brings his phone to the bridge of his nose, gently hitting it against his head a couple of times just like he wants to hit his head against a wall right now.

He presses dial.

“I’m at Em’s,” he says as soon as Lovett picks up. “He can come here, right?” Jon asks Emily, who nods frantically, and he says into the cell, “you can come here.”

Lovett laughs hollowly. “I’m in the elevator.”

Jon stands, walks to the door and is there to meet Lovett with an enveloping hug when the elevator doors open for him.

Lovett is trembling, and holding onto him is terrifying.

Jon rests his cheek on top of Lovett’s head and thinks back to the times he’s known Lovett to seem this bad. Once last year, after that stupid class Lovett almost failed, and maybe that time in Freshman year after that shitty one night stand Lovett had. He looks at Emily where she’s hovering behind him and asks, “do you have diet coke?”

She gives him a tense smile, ducking back into her door to grab her purse. “There’s a vending machine downstairs,” she tells him. “I’ll be right back.”

On her way past she leans up on tiptoes to give Jon a peck on the mouth, then Lovett one on the cheek.

“Let’s get inside,” Jon says.

Lovett pulls away as Jon guides him into Em's appartment, and Jon watches as he tries to pull on a facade of everything being fine. It crumbles off him a moment later as he sinks into the couch, putting his head in his hands.

Jon watches him helplessly for a moment, hating how good Lovett is at looking after _him_ in a spiraland how hopeless Jon feels like he is in this moment. Hesitantly, he hunkers down in front of Lovett, resting his palms on the couch on either side of Lovett for balance. He’s still working out the right words to ask Lovett if he’s okay when Lovett beats him to the punch.

“They invited me to have a threeway,” he says.

“Oh, Jesus _Christ_ ,” Jon says. Since Tommy’s text he’s been wondering where he fit into this, but he didn’t think Tommy would have fucked up like this, specifically. At least Jon knows for sure what Lovett’s spiral has been about, though. Tommy. And Ronan & Tommy, and the loss of that will-they, won’t-they Tommy and Lovett thing that’s been going on way longer than Jon himself had realised at the time.

_Way to shove it in his face, dude,_ Jon mentally tells an imaginary Tommy. Imaginary and real Tommy would both be horrified if they realised, Jon knows.

“Hey,” he says softly, so that Lovett can ignore it if he needs to. “Tommy asked me to let him know if I saw you. He’s worried. Is it okay if I do?”

Lovett makes a wet-sounding groan and nods, then adds, a little choked up, “tell him I’m fine. Tell him I need to not see him tonight.”

“Okay.”

Jon pats his knee before sitting next to him on the couch, typing out a text that reads,  _he’s with me. needs some space. we’ll see you tomorrow. you’re an idiot but it’ll be fine._

He puts his cell down, then puts an arm around Lovett’s shoulders and gently pulls him into his side. It’s way more contact than Lovett would normally allow, but he settles into it with a wet sigh, letting his hands fall from his face.

“This is dumb,” he says, rubbing at his chest like there’s an actual ache there. “I feel so… moronic.” His voice is flat and he sounds exhausted.

“You’re not _that_ ,” Jon tells him. “Never.”

“Maybe I should have stayed,” Lovett muses, maybe not even hearing Jon. “Fucked it out of my system.”

It’s so weird and unnatural to hear Lovett talking like that. Jon and figures they’ve had maybe two conversations about sex the whole time they’ve known each other. It’s never been weird; if Jon had thought about it before now, he’d have put it down to Lovett’s occassional fear he’s going to send Jon (and formerly Tommy) into a panic at the mention of anything too gay. Lovett’s just private, and maybe a little bit of a prude. It’s what makes what Tommy’s done such a shock, but the way Lovett is talking about it is even more so.

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Em says, closing the door behind her. She passes three bottles of diet coke to Jon before crowding into Lovett’s space on his free side. She takes his hand between both of hers. “And anyway: been there, tried it, here to tell you it doesn’t work.”

“That’s shitty,” Lovett says, sounding like he’s trying very hard to keep his voice flat and emotionless. “Another media lie.”

Jon gives a short, forced laugh, mostly in an attempt to make Lovett feel a little better. It falls short.

“What happened?” he asks instead.

Lovett shrugs, then says, “Ronan came on to me while straddling Tommy, Tommy said he was into it if I was, and I freaked out and left, like a coward. That’s it.” He pauses to open his coke, taking a big swig before holding it to his temple as if he has a headache. “Do I really seem that pathetic?” he asks.

“ _No_ ,” Em says, clearly following Lovett’s logic better than Jon is as he says, “what?”

“I’m going between options,” Lovett says, tilting his head back against Jon’s arm to watch the ceiling. “Either Tommy knows how I am about him and this was a pity thing, or he knows and he’s a dick, or he’s oblivious and Ronan’s the one either pitying me or being a dick, and I don’t know which option would be the most devastating.”

Jon shares a look with Emily, one laden with concern.

“What if it’s none of the above?” Jon asks Lovett. “What if they like you and are both oblivious and just wanted to sleep with you?”

Lovett smiles, his self-deprecation lost on Em’s ceiling but not on her or Jon. “Ronan’s not oblivious,” Lovett says, with a finality that says he knows it for sure.

“Oh.”

Jon’s phone vibrates with a message and he cautiously picks it up to read it.

**please tell him we’re so sorry and that we misread things and that we never meant to do anything to fuck things up between us. we care so much about him.**

_i will. x_ , he sends back.

When he looks up, Lovett is watching him. He firms his jaw. “Go on, hit me,” he says.

Jon relays the message, watching carefully as Lovett shutters up inside his head for a few moments as he processes how he feels.

“Okay,” he says. He casts around for something to distract them and lands on the nonsense on TV. “What the fuck are you watching?” he says, and gratefully listens as Em explains the dumb reality TV mess on their screen until Lovett is caught up and suitably distracted.

Jon puts his hand on Emily’s where she’s still holding one of Lovett’s in both of hers and squeezes, gently, silently thanking her for being the best person in the world.

~~~

Later, Lovett is set to sleep on the couch when Em takes one last look at him, looking lonely, sitting there on his own, and says, “hey, come join us tonight. I promise we’ll only be sleeping.”

It should be weird, but Jon likes it, settling down to sleep with Lovett between him and Emily, complaining that it’s going to get too hot and that he’s being smothered in their care even as he luxuriates in it. Em wraps her arm around Lovett’s waist and puts Lovett’s arm over Jon’s hip, laughing as Lovett says, “while I appreciate the subversiveness of having the biggest guy be the littlest spoon, doesn’t it seem a bit of a waste of his protective body mass?”

“Jon likes being the little spoon,” Em tells him, confessional. Jon shrugs at Lovett’s curious look, figuring he can bare a little of his own stuff since Lovett’s been left so open tonight.

They’re quiet for a few minutes, Em’s hand moving until it’s resting on Jon’s hip under Lovett’s forearm, Lovett squirming until he’s finally comfortable, half on his belly.

“Do you promise you won’t ever proposition me?” Lovett asks them, sounding more alert than he has any business being.

“Pinky promise,” Em tells him, moving so she can make it a thing, twisting their pinkies together. “Jon’s as straight as they come, and I have a policy on not lusting after gay guys.”

“Okay, good,” Lovett says, faint laughter in his voice. “That’s a good policy.”

“It’s worked out well for me,” Em tells him, voice a little muffled. Jon looks behind him to see that she’s speaking into Lovett’s hair. Anyone but Lovett and Jon might be a little jealous. As it is, he just feels the warm burst of happiness he always gets seeing two of his favourite people in the world getting along. Like a family, almost.

Lovett shifts again just as Jon’s about to fall asleep, briefly regretting going along with Em’s suggestion.

“Hey, Em? Favs?” Lovett asks, voice very quiet. His tone says he has a wry smile on his lips and whatever he says next is going to be something he will deny is serious until the day he dies if they push him on it. He takes a deep breath before he says it, though. “If I end up alone, will you adopt me?”

Jon turns over, careful not to dislodge their hands on him. Lovett’s eyes are closed but Em’s are open, blinking owlishly at Jon for a moment as they both contemplate what to say. There’s a couple of options: deny he’ll end up alone, or accept the premise and admit they’ll be happy to have him along for the ride for as long as he wants to be.

Jon reaches over Lovett to smoothe a hand down Emily’s back, checking in, and realises (not for the first time) that she’s the one for him as she smiles at him and nods.

“Of course, Lovett,” Jon says simply. “You’ve got a home wherever we are.”


	6. part iii: (don't) wanna drop my guard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is late. also, please remember to tread carefully - people make some choices in this chapter that i am fully aware will be too much for some. the 'consent issues' warning becomes even more important in this chap.
> 
> chapter title is from Raleigh Ritchie (aka Grey Worm)'s 'Stay Inside'.

Lovett wakes up soaked in sweat, somehow with both Favs' and Emily’s hair in his mouth, wrapped up in the middle of the two of them.

It’s as uncomfortable as it is comforting.

He watches Favs with his mouth open in sleep, disbelieving that he's woken up first and then wondering what Favs will do if Tommy and he can’t patch things up. Who’ll get him in the divorce? Has Lovett successfully staked a claim already, or will Favs and Tommy’s we-know-each-other-from-summer-camp history overcome all? Will whoever gets Favs get to keep Dan, too, or will they split them up evenly?

 _This is a mess_ , Lovett tells himself.

Lovett pushes onto his back, careful not to unsettle the other two and wake them. He’s so rarely slept with other people in the same room, let alone in the same bed. It feels like he's woken into a claustrophobic magic spell and he doesn't want to break it.

He looks down at his tshirt where it's sticking to his clammy skin and it's not a great time for him to notice Favs’ boxers or the tent in them. Favs is half-turned towards Lovett, half away, and he must have kicked the comforter and sheets away in the night since his legs are bare to the air. His blue boxers ride up his left leg slightly.

Lovett looks at it with detachment, wondering if he can really work up the energy to have two crises this morning: one novel one over Tommy and Ronan, and another routine one over this. Over how, while he's definitely more interested in what Favs is packing in his boxers than what Em has in hers (technically his, still), he doesn't want to touch. Even though he does find Favs attractive. Even though he once, for a strange period of time just after he first met Ronan, had a very vivid interior fantasy life in which he and Favs were boyfriends.

He thinks about Tommy and Ronan together on the couch last night and wonders if, even if everything else weren't complicated, he'd even want to slide up next to them and join in. He tries to imagine where he'd put his hands - on Tommy’s neck and the small of Ronan’s back? - and likes that part of the idea. So far so good. But… then what?

What could they possibly want from him that he could give?

It's a cruel twist of fate that made the one thing Tommy and Ronan want from him, the one thing he doesn't think he can give.

~~~

Favs is obviously trying hard to keep things light and easy over breakfast. It's not until the very end of the available food that his composure breaks.

“Do you know what you're going to do?” he hesitantly asks, pushing one last cheerio round the milk in his bowl far too intently.

Lovett says, “run away?” Favs fixes him with a stern look ruined by the worry he’s doing a bad job of hiding behind frowning eyebrows. He tries again: “I guess I should start by talking to them.”

Favs nods, offering an encouraging smile. “Good plan,” he says. “Want me to come with you?”

Lovett rolls his eyes.

“Sweet as that is,” he says. “I don't need you to come with me like Tommy and I are in first grade and have had our first fight and you're my mom and-” He cuts himself of as Favs’ frown of confusion continues to grow. “Whatever. Analogies,” he says.

“Isn't this your first fight, though?” Favs asks.

Lovett is startled. “No,” he says. “Well. Maybe.” About anything important, sure. “Except we’re not fighting.”

“Aren't you?”

“No,” Lovett says, surprising both himself and Favs with how emphatic he sounds. “I don't blame him or anything,” he explains. “With the information available to him, I understand why he'd think the offer of a threesome with my two very attractive friends would be nothing but good, hot, sweaty fun.”

Favs watched him closely. “Maybe,” he says, which is close enough to him conceding the point for now. “Are you going to fill him in on the other information, or is this going to be a ‘let's agree to never mention it’ situation?”

Lovett looks at him in askance.

“Now, Jon, please,” he says. “You know me.”

Favs continues to watch him. It's starting to make Lovett feel a little itchy. “I do,” Favs says after a moment. “And I'm just putting it out there that I think you should put _it_ all out there. I think it would be best.”

Lovett pulls at a loose thread hanging from the hem of his tshirt. “I don't know what you think there is to put out there,” he says.

“Jon-”

“But I can’t imagine it being welcome,” Lovett continues, interrupting. “Hypothetically.” Favs puts his hand on Lovett’s, curling his fingers round the palm and ignoring the way it makes Lovett startle. “Did I give you permission to do this whenever you want just because we spooned last night?” he asks, not managing to sound as outraged as he would like.

Favs shakes his head, smiling. “Don't bury your crap, Lovett,” he says.

Lovett has no idea what to say to that. Favs is far from dumb, but he's not really the serious advice-giving type, either. Not most of the time.

“Okay, fine,” Lovett tells him. He considers pulling his hand free of Favs’ to punctuate his sentence, but it's just a little bit too nice to be holding his hand. “I'll try,” he says.

~~~

One moment, Lovett is opening the door to the flat; the next, he’s slamming it shut again. And in the meantime he hadn’t moved inside. In the meantime, he'd had a second to see Tommy’s startled face look up from the couch, a second to panic, his heart clattering against his rib cage, and a second to chicken the hell out.

 _Pathetic,_ he tells himself.

Taking a deep breath, he makes himself imagine Tommy sitting alone on the couch with his saddest kicked puppy expression and pushes the door back open.

“Sorry,” he says by way of a greeting. He gestures behind himself to the door. “That was really immature.”

Tommy shakes his head, expression a complex mix of surprise and fear. “Don't,” he says, not elaborating. “It's fine.”

Lovett shoved his hands in his pockets, fixing his eyes on Tommy’s right shoulder. “So…” he starts, feeling like he has to. He should be the one to start.

No clue how to continue, though. Really, isn't showing back up enough?

“Let’s just never mention it again?” Lovett says, his question-like intonation making it sound like he's joking when really he's deadly serious and yet, sadly, practical enough to know it's impossible.

Tommy, Lovett can tell from the way his ears twitch the tiniest bit, tries a slight smile. “I'm all for repression,” he says. “But I don't think that's the best idea.” He takes a big breath, sitting up completely straight as if there's a rod holding up his back. “Lovett, I'm so, so sorry.” He sounds sick to his stomach, all that guilt building up all night. Lovett chances a direct look at his face and sees bleary, bloodshot eyes and tired-looking skin.

Lovett can't stand that. He crosses the room and sits next to Tommy on the couch, leaving plenty of space between them. He absently notes that he and Tommy have swapped seats from last night.

“Thank you,” he says. Not what he'd expected to leave his mouth. “I reacted about as badly as possible, though. Sorry.”

The sound Tommy makes is choked back. They're both quiet for a few moments as Tommy seems to cycle through things he wants to say, finally landing on, “could've punched us both.” Then he adds, quieter, “could’ve not come back.”

Lovett twists his expression to show what he thinks of that idea. “You didn't try to murder me.”

That tricks a single half-laugh out of Tommy, who folds over himself to rest his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. “You're impossible,” he says, sounding so fond it makes Lovett’s chest feel tight.

“Tommy,” he starts. He injects plenty of seriousness into the word in warning, waiting for Tommy to visibly brace himself. “Where's Ronan?”

Tommy drops his hands from his face, leaving them to hang, limp, over opposite knees, remaining hunched over. He wets his lips.

“We argued,” Tommy says.

“Over me?” Lovett asks. He turns bodily to Tommy, the tight, nauseous feeling he associates with panic creeping through him. At Tommy’s silent nod, he bursts in frustration, saying, “Why the _fuck_?” Then, after a moment of staring at Tommy in frustrated confusion, he adds, “Why'd you offer if you couldn't take a no?”

Tommy shrugs. Lovett didn't know he could feel so blindingly angry and worried at the same time, in one body, but he can, and he does, suddenly, and it's making him feel a step away from tears.

“You're my best friend,” Tommy says quietly. “I didn't realise how much it'd suck to see you run away like that and not know if I'd really fucked it up for good.”

Lovett just looks at him, recognising the helplessness of Tommy's panic for a truly irrational thing. Which he realises is hypocritical, given he'd been thinking to himself of this thing as a divorce just this morning, but something about seeing Tommy's face has made him realise he's not ducking out of their friendship for anything. Certainly not a stupid little bruised heart.

“And you two breaking up would help how?” Lovett asks. Tommy meets his eyes to properly frown at him, then, after a moment of that, shrugs, mouth turned down in misery. “Martyr,” Lovett tells him.

Tommy looks conflicted. He smiles for a brief moment, then looks guilty about it. Gives Lovett a mournful look, then looks guilty about that too and looks away.

Lovett sighs. He really doesn't feel up to being the adult, but he feels even less okay with the idea of never fixing this and always feeling this horrible twisted sadness and guilt when he looks at Tommy.

He pulls his cell out. His last text is one from Ronan that he'd, up to now, ignored. It just reads, **I completely stepped over the line and I am so sorry.**

Lovett opens to a new message.

_will you meet tommy and i at that pizza place on campus as soon as you can? please?_

He can feel Tommy’s eyes on his face as he waits for a reply, and thankfully barely waits a minute before Ronan gets back to him.

**I'll be there in 20.**

He doesn’t even mention that it’s only 10:30am, which, now Lovett’s got to know him and his delight in teasing Lovett at all times, tells him a lot about Ronan’s relative state of mind.

“Come on,” Lovett says, standing. “We’re going to get your boyfriend back.”

~~~

If the drive to campus was awkward (and it was - Tommy barely kept his eyes on the road a legal amount of the time he was driving), waiting at a table for three for both pizza and Ronan was excruciating.

“So you're going to apologise,” Lovett coaches. Tommy’s worry is rolling off him.

“Am I?” Tommy asks. Lovett glares at him.

“Yes,” he says. “Because no matter what else happened, it's bad form to invite someone to a reconciliation if you're not willing to do come conciliating.”

Tommy opens his mouth, looking ready to object but also looking at least a little less inconsolably guilty as he works up to an argument.

“Hi.”

Shoulders set, Ronan stands looking down at them, eyes warily flicking between them.

“Hey!” Lovett could kick himself immediately for how obvious his relief is. This feels like a really difficult tone to hit. He has no idea what tone it is he even wants to hit. “Uh,” he starts. He goes to move, saying, “so, Tommy has something to say to you and I’m going to go… somewhere. For ten minutes. Or just text me when I can come back. Whatever.”

Tommy’s hand covers his where he’s pushing himself up from the table.

“Stay?” he asks. Lovett looks at him. Blinks. If not for the light and the pizza smell and the noise, and the fact that it’s Tommy saying it, he could be back in that moment last night. Maybe Tommy thinks the same thing, or maybe he’s just second guessing himself, but he picks his hand up and then drops it again, touching, not touching, touching in the space of a second. “Please,” he says. “I need you here for this.”

Lovett sits. He can manage that much, though the flush he can feel across his whole face seems to have stolen his ability to speak. Tommy’s hand slides off his, leaving his skin with the memory of contact.

Ronan hesitates for a moment before sliding into the booth next to Lovett where the waitress had left a table setting. He glances at Lovett, then lands his gaze on Tommy and stays there. He takes a deep breath, then says, “I’m really sorry.” He shifts in his seat, playing with the cutlery in front of him. Tommy had ordered a soda for him when they got there and now Ronan picks his glass up and takes a sip. He glances between Tommy and Lovett, then says, “I’m glad… you two seem to be okay. I was worried.”

Lovett watches Tommy, waiting for him to say something until it becomes clear he isn’t going to. Tommy seems to be finding the table fascinating. Ronan, when Lovett glances at him, is watching Tommy, too.

“We’ll be fine,” Lovett says. “What’s a little miscommunication between best friends?” Ronan gives him a grateful (if still uncertain) smile. It wobbles a little. Lovett pretends not to notice both for Ronan’s sake and his own. “Tommy?” Lovett prods, close to kicking him under the table if he doesn’t do something soon.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “I, uh.” He scrubs his hands over his face and into his hair in frustration, looking at Lovett and then Ronan through wide, shining eyes. “I owe you both an apology. I’m sorry. I think I handled last night about as shitily as I could and ended up pushing both of you away.” He pauses, taking a deep breath, and when he speaks next his voice is lower; honest. “You’re two of my most important people. I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.”

Lovett swallows around the tightness in his throat and nods. He offers Tommy a quick smile, imagining a world in which they never spoke again. Horrible. Inconceivable. Something he’d been dreading all last night until Favs finally made him go talk to Tommy forty minutes ago, and already it’s a distant nightmare of an idea.

“It’s my fault,” Ronan softly tells the table. “I thought I had you both figured out,” he adds. “I was smug, and you reacted differently to how I thought you would, Lovett, and I don’t blame you, Tommy, for how you reacted afterwards.”

Tommy makes a low sound of agreement. “I was scared,” he admits.

“I know,” Ronan says. “I’m sorry I did something that made you feel that way.”

Lovett objects, making an incoherent sound which is meant to voice his objection. “Actually,” he says. “Technically, it was me who made him feel that way. I ran.”

“I made you run,” Ronan says, frowning at him. They’ve turned to face each other, leaving Tommy on the other side of the table to look between them.

Their pizza arrives via a cheery waiter who sets two pizzas down between them and asks if they want anything else. Tommy says, “no, thank you,” then as he’s walking away adds, “thanks for the handy prop. Now we can symbolically portion out our feelings of guilt.”

Ronan laughs, eyes crinkling with relief or gratitude or both shining in his eyes. Lovett rolls his, taking a slice and saying, “sure, let’s all take one slice at a time and own up to our emotions. Like a prize for bravery.”

Tommy does take a slice, and then does say, “I think we,” gesturing between himself and Ronan with his slice, “tricked ourselves into thinking you’d be into it, and forgot to actually check before trying.”

“Um. Well,” Ronan says, tearing a piece off his own slice before letting both pieces drop to his plate. He looks apologetically at Tommy, then even more so at Lovett. “I thought I had,” he says. “Checked, I mean. The night before, at the party.”

Lovett flushes, saying, “oh,” as he remembers Ronan’s whisper in his ear as a sense memory of heat against it. Tommy is frowning at them. In the name of not letting him look like a confused puppy for any longer than absolutely necessary, Lovett says, “Ronan asked me if I was still into you.”

Tommy drops his pizza to his plate, staring at him, first, for a long moment, then quickly at Ronan. “Still?” he asks. He sounds so unsure and small; confused and, breaking through in his eyes, a little bit hopeful.

Lovett looks down at the table. “Yeah,” he says. “And, uh, that’s why I, uh...” He coughs. Tommy’s pizza slice is half hanging over the edge of his plate and so greasy it’s in danger of dripping. “I was maybe eighty percent sure you knew, so. Yeah.”

“I did not,” Tommy says, sounding more than a little shell shocked. Ronan coughs in what seems to be a pointed fashion, and when Lovett looks up Tommy is glaring at him. “I… I hoped, at one point. But then nothing happened and I met Ronan.”

“And I told him about us,” Ronan says, nodding to Lovett. “Our thing.” Lovett wants to die right where he is as he imagines Ronan telling Tommy how awful to him Lovett had been. He's vaguely known they must have talked about it at some point. They so clearly aren't keeping things from each other. He can’t imagine Tommy wouldn’t have come to Ronan’s defence, though, and doesn’t remember Tommy being cold with him at all since he and Ronan got together. If anything, he’s been just as willing to include Lovett in all aspects of his life.

“Sorry,” Lovett says. “About that. I really was a dick to you and I don’t think I’ve said but I know you now and Tommy definitely knows you and wouldn’t date anyone who deserved how I treated you, so. I’m really sorry.”

Ronan smiles at him. “Thank you,” he says, though he then shrugs with one shoulder and says, “though you don't really have to be. You didn't owe me anything at the time and I'm not going to blame you now for something you did two years ago.”

Feeling a tentative bloom of something like relief, Lovett smiles back at him. “Okay,” he says. “The apology stands, though.” Thinking about their one night together brings Lovett back to the crux of the problem here for Lovett, though; namely, what they wanted him for. So he says, “what, um. What was your plan, last night?”

Tommy was onto something earlier with his table studying, Lovett decides, finding he just can't look at them once he's asked the question.

“We hadn't exactly talked one through,” Tommy admits, sounding a little like a kid expecting a scolding.

“We'd talked about it a fair bit,” Ronan says. “Hypothetically at first, but then reality crept in more and more. Tommy was so convinced you weren't interested, though. So I thought, I don't know… why not offer, and then maybe we talk or maybe we make out and whatever comes after, but either way we do something with the tension between you two.”

Lovett sneaks a glance at a very red Tommy. The thought of them talking about him, and he can't quite escape the _what if_ of what kinds of talking they might have been doing, is a whole big thought he's going to have to grapple with for a while.

Ronan had thought there might be a talking option, though. That could still be code for an option involving sex, sure, but it could be… Lovett's not kidding himself that they'd be having this conversation at all if at least part of what they want from him wasn't sex, but—

Maybe he could be okay with it if it came with… more?

“Look, I’m just going to put all my cards on the table,” Ronan says. “I really liked you back when we first met, and you rejecting me back then set me up for kind of a shitty first semester, even if I was just one night for you. But since I’ve met Tommy, and met you again, I’ve had basically the best time since I’ve been at college. I like you both a lot, and I had the unfair advantage of knowing from both of you how you felt about each other, or at least as much as either of you would admit because it’s like pulling teeth. I thought I’d figured out something that could work. For all three of us. But if it turns out I’ve figured out something that works for the two of you, then. Serves me right.”

Lovett turns his attention on Ronan, thinking:  _this **idiot**_.

“Fuck’s sake, Ronan,” Lovett says. “Will you stop trying to sacrifice yourself in the name of love? Tommy is basically ready to propose and you’re trying to throw it away just in case I stop running.” He barrels right over his own suddenly very insecure feelings over about five things he’s just said by adding to them, saying, “There’s a line where it stops being hot and starts to become stupid.”

There’s a pause in the wake of that outburst before Tommy says, “so you do find him hot,” sounding hopeful. Lovett is so confused by both of them. Then Tommy adds, to Ronan, “wait, when did you try to ‘sacrifice’ yourself?”

A glance his way shows a blushing Ronan who is trying very hard to keep a blank expression on his face. He shrugs again, and this time Lovett sees it as a gesture which looks out of place on him and makes him look young and unsure, doing unfortunate things to Lovett’s already tight chest.

“After that first night,” Ronan says. “Remember I said I’d found Lovett dying in the bathroom? We talked, after, about how we met and stuff. It was pretty obvious he liked you, and we’d just met, so.”

“So he tried to let me ruin another one night stand,” Lovett says, rolling his eyes.

“Which wasn’t what I’d been thinking of it as, actually,” Ronan assures Tommy, then flicks a wry glance Lovett’s way. “I have a bad habit of thinking things like that are more than they are; I just lucked out that you felt the same. But I basically dared him to kiss you when you joined us.”

“He said he’d ‘get out of my way’ if I did,” Lovett adds.

Tommy is biting his lip, looking more transparently conflicted than Lovett has ever seen a person look.

“I can’t decide if I wish you had or I’m glad you didn’t,” Tommy admits, a faint tremor in his voice. He sighs, low and frustrated, and says, “being into two people is dumb. It’s hard and confusing and I have no idea what to do.”

Ronan, reaching over the table and taking one of Tommy’s hands in his, squeezes it as he nods, smiling weakly in what looks like agreement.

Lovett, under his breath, says, “tell me about it.” He’s half hoping he says it so quietly that they won’t hear, but no sooner has he muttered it than they turn to look at him in unison, like something out of a horror film. “Shut up,” he mumbles. “Yes, okay? Don’t make me say it.”

Tommy gently takes hold of his shoulder, moving slowly enough that Lovett can shrug it off and away if he needs to. Lovett’s not sure if he needs to right up until Tommy’s hand touches him, the warmth and pressure of it sinking into his skin through the material of his hoodie and shirt, and turns out that even though it makes him shiver, he wants it to stay.

Tommy always seems to know when to take the chance and try to ground him.

“Lo’,” Tommy says, speaking softly. Still being gentle with him. “I think we need you to say it.”

Lovett, feeling deep in his gut that he’s making a terrible mistake, nods. He pulls a face to show how he feels about this whole situation. “I like you both,” he says. He reaches out blind for his coke and holds it protectively to his chest after taking a drink. “I’ve been pining, I guess.” He chews on his bottom lip. “And every time you let me be in your space I felt like I had to leave before I got so comfortable there you’d need to make me.”

 _There,_ he thinks. _Cards on the table, just like Ronan's._ It's not the time or the place for his last card; the Joker in his deck. If he's being honest with himself, he's beginning to think he’ll keep ahold of the last one for forever. But he gets as close as he can.

From the angle, it’s Ronan who carefully insinuates himself closer into Lovett’s space and, a bit like a reward for talking, winds their legs together so one of Ronan’s is between Lovett’s and their ankles are pressed together.

“No running,” he says softly, voice lower than is strictly appropriate for a public place in the mid-morning. “We want you here with us.”

“We do,” Tommy says. Like it’s just that simple.

“Oh, and it’s that simple?” Lovett asks, thinking about Tommy and Ronan’s perfectly perfect new relationship and all the dumb, unexplainable baggage he’s bringing with him.

Tommy lights up, probably because Lovett isn’t automatically fighting this on substance, just in terms of practicality. Scratch the surface and turns out Tommy is an idealist. 

“Yes and no,” Ronan says, also smiling. “But few good things are easy.”

Tommy snorts a laugh. “You’re proof of that, Lovett,” he says, eyes sparkling.

And maybe if Tommy didn’t look so happy - incandescently, a part of Lovett’s aspiring-writer brain provides for him - it’d be easier for Lovett to say no. Maybe if Ronan weren’t a warm, solid presence next to him, keeping him here and upright, maybe then it’d be easier. Maybe if he could just be honest with them and explain, _hey, I’m bringing something with me that may kill this before it’s anything_ or say, _you should know, I’m-_ and then that word he still can’t say even where he’s most alone, in his head. Maybe then he’d be able to do the thing he should do, which is call this off now before it gets messy. Before he fucks it up for all of them.

“I don’t want you to be making a mistake,” he tells them. “I don’t want you to lose what you have.”

Tommy makes a noise that seems to say he’s displeased by that notion. Verbally, he adds, “let us take that risk. For you. Please. We want to, I think.”

Lovett watches as he and Ronan do the mindmeld non-verbal conversation thing, feeling like he’s never going to be able to figure out what’s apprehension and what’s hope ever again.

“I think so, too,” Ronan says.

For a moment they’re giving each other that look that’s, ever since they got together, made Lovett feel lonely in a way that’s so deep it’d felt too big for just one person to be feeling. The next moment, they’re including him in it. Again with that too-big-for-one-person feeling, Lovett’s left feeling hollowed out.

“Fuck,” he says. “Okay. Yes. Me too.”

~~~

Maybe they realise he needs some time to reset after that deep of a conversation, or maybe they need it too, but the rest of their time at the pizza place is spent talking about anything and everything other than what they’ve all just agreed to.

Once, Ronan refers to it as their first date, Tommy agrees with a laugh, and Lovett feels too overwhelmed to speak.

Otherwise, though, they stick to safe things. The station, the Herald, their families, their friends, and the great dog in their building that Tommy, Favs and Lovett have been slowly befriending in a year long campaign involving cuddles and dog treats they really shouldn't be buying on their shitty student budgets.

After, they walk to the Quad. Tommy finds them a spot on the grass with shade for Ronan, sun for Lovett, and a tree for his own back. Together they stretch out, three sides of a triangle, quiet for a moment.

Lovett can't stop himself from asking: “are you sure?” Just one more time, under his breath.

“Yes,” Ronan says, nudging Lovett’s thigh with his booted foot in rebuke.

“I want to try,” Tommy says. It’s not the absolute answer Ronan has offered, but it's firm in its own way.

Lovett appreciates both.

“We should figure our ground rules, I think,” Ronan says a few minutes later, plucking up grass periodically and letting each blade fall on top of Lovett’s shins. “Things like: what we can do in twos, what we should save for all three of us, what we call each other, how quickly or slowly we want to get into this-”

“How many rules we should have?” Tommy asks, raising an eyebrow.

“What do we tell people?” Lovett asks. His stomach has dropped into the ground. “Everyone knows how I feel about you, Tommy. I'm not going to be able to hide that it's not totally unrequited anymore.”

Tommy frowns a little; Ronan rolls his eyes and says, “it's completely requited. Stop selling yourself short.”

Tommy's face clears into a shy smile. He lays a hand over Lovett’s wrist and tells him, “tell them we're boyfriends. All of us.”

“You say that like it’s less confusing,” Lovett says, mind spinning through a lot of different thoughts at once, including, _who gets to be in the middle? Do we take turns?_ and other pieces of nonsense. Tommy squeezes his wrist gently just as Ronan does the same to his ankle.

“Jon, it’s okay that we don’t know everything yet,” Ronan says. “Let’s just agree on the basics, and figure the rest out as it comes up. Okay?”

That sounds logical. Tommy is smiling and nodding, so Lovett agrees.

Then, “but, uh, what’re the basics?” he asks.

Ronan has started picking the grass blades he’s pilled up on Lovett’s shins back off. He’s careful not to touch Lovett’s skin, but his fingers keep brushing the hairs on Lovett’s legs. He involuntarily shivers.

“Things like, is it okay if I tell my mom?” Ronan asks. He looks between the two of them, ready to smile but with a genuine flash of worry in the look he’s giving them.

“Of course,” Tommy says instantly. He creeps his hand closer to Ronan’s in the grass and links their pinkies, middle-schooler-at-heart that he is. Ronan looks charmed, though. Lovett’s not unfamiliar with the emotion.

“…sure,” Lovett says after a moment, unable to stand the furtive anticipation rolling off Ronan any longer. “Just. Is it okay if I don’t tell mine?” He flops backwards on the grass so he doesn’t have to look at them. “Not- Just for the short term. Medium, maybe.”

He watches the leaves above them, holding his breath until Tommy says, “hey, I haven't even come out to mine yet. It's okay.”

Lovett turns his head towards Tommy, considering him for a moment as he decides whether to push on that new information just now.

“I didn't know that,” he says after a moment.

“You didn't ask,” Tommy replies, punctuating it with a shrug.

Lovett nods. “Fair,” he says. “I should've.”

Ronan snorts. Lovett and Tommy break eye contact to look at him. One eyebrow raised, in Lovett’s case.

“On the list of things you two should've been communicating about more,” he explains. “I might not put that at the top.”

Inexplicably, Tommy flushes a bright red. Lovett frowns at him, but really he's thinking about how Ronan might be onto something.

“Okay, then,” he says. “Let’s start there: what _should_ we have been talking about?”

Ronan opens his mouth, then closes it again. He's trying hard to take the question in stride, maybe, or maybe he's just thinking hard about how to phrase “you're both monumental idiots” in a way that's appropriate for your two boyfriends.

 _‘Boyfriends’, plural, even sounds dumb in my head,_ Lovett thinks, ignoring the way the word ‘boyfriend’, if he's honest with himself, sends his stomach wildly butterfly-filled.

“Well,” Ronan says at length. “Tommy. You should tell Lovett what you thought it might mean when Lovett got weird after you brought me around.”

Lovett didn't know Tommy could go that particular shade of red. He almost feels cheated; he’d thought he'd managed to elicit all possible shades out of him by now.

Knocking his head back against the tree behind his back, Tommy groans. “How much of this relationship -” Lovett’s stomach flips. “- is going to be just you two ganging up on me.”

Lovett hums, playing up considering the question as he shares a quick, slightly shy grin with Ronan. “Most, I think,” he says.

“Don't pretend you're not into that, Tommy,” Ronan adds. Then he pokes Tommy in the thigh and says, “quit stalling.”

Tommy, with a put-upon sigh which fools no one, says, “fine, sure. I hoped you were jealous, maybe, Lovett. Like I hoped you'd be jealous basically any time I flirted with or dated someone since I've known you because maybe I was pining, too.”

“Oh,” Lovett says, unable and unwilling to stop the spread of happiness across his face and basically his whole body. He grins happily up at the leafy canopy and clear blue sky above him. “Cool,” he says.

Ronan can snort all he wants. As if Lovett gives a shit in the face of Tommy _pining_. Over him!

“Cool,” he says again. Ronan pokes him in the shin this time so Lovett finally adds, “I was, obviously.”

When he's frustrated, Tommy sounds like what Lovett imagines a dismissive pony would sound like. “Why didn't you do anything?” he asks. Only by the time he's finished saying it, Lovett has recategorised Tommy’s reaction not as frustrated, but as hurt, or trying not to be. Lovett is speechless for a moment.

“What do you mean, why didn't I do anything?” he asks. He looks between Ronan and Tommy; the latter for clues and the former for answers. There are a lot of possible answers, actually, but Lovett can't figure out what the best one would be. The one that'll make him least vulnerable, but upset Tommy (and Ronan) the least.

And maybe there's a reason why those two things seem to be competing factors.

Finally Lovett bites his lip and goes with the oblique but honest answer:

“I figured whatever you might want from me, I couldn't offer,” he says.

Tommy frowns, then nods.

“That sounds familiar,” he says, speaking in a quiet, honest voice. “But honestly, Lovett, I just want us — the three of us — to make each other happy.” He pauses, not intentionally leaving time for Lovett to swallow his heart and flick a pleading, overwhelmed look at Ronan. Ronan, who is silently, fondly laughing at them.

Tommy adds, “do you think we can do that?”

Ronan presses his fingertips into Lovett’s ankle bone, gently, in a kind of supportive, _I've got you; you can't run_ gesture. He smiles at Tommy and says, “I think it's the best possible starting point,” looking besotted and hopeful and young.

It's another quick heart-flutter later that Lovett says, “yeah, I want to.”

~~~

Obviously Ronan's moved since the last time Lovett was in his bedroom two years ago. And it looks different. Less like the room of an eighteen-year-old packed off to college by their mom. Tidier.

But it's still weird. Being… not back, but… back.

Lovett's eyes catch on a sweater, hanging over the back of a desk chair, which he recognises as one Tommy wears all the time even though it's a size too small for him. Then they catch on the neatly made bed, partly because he knows that's not Tommy's influence and he enjoys knowing new things about Ronan, and partly for the other obvious associations.

And then he locks eyes on the way they, Tommy and Ronan, move around each other and the room. Effortless. Aware of each other, casual and comfortable.

 _I want that,_ he thinks. _I want them._

He just barely stops himself from shutting down; realising, tentatively, that he's allowed to think like that. He's allowed to have.

He thinks he’ll do whatever he needs to if he gets to have, and not just want.

Tommy moves into Ronan's space, chest to Ronan's back, and gently takes hold of his wrists. Ronan's hands still — Lovett only now realises Ronan had been unsettled, moving with nervous energy — and Tommy laces their fingers together, leaning over Ronan’s shoulder to kiss him, soft and sweet.

Lovett's breath catches in his throat.

Tommy, consciously or not, has subtly turned their bodies so they're facing him, so Lovett can see the way Ronan falls back into Tommy’s broad chest as Tommy kisses him. Smoothing his worry away.

They're stunning.

And yeah, Tommy knows exactly what he's doing, both to Ronan and to Lovett. He pulls back from the kiss just enough to make Ronan chase him, cutting a heavy-lidded look in Lovett’s direction as if to dare him: _watch us_.

Lovett can't look away.

A moment later it's Ronan looking his way, smiling at him from around Tommy's kiss. This time it's less _watch us_ and more _join in?_ It's an electric current from Lovett's head to his toes.

And he responds predictably.

“Um,” he says. That it's audible is a miracle. “I'll be right back.”

And he turns and walks straight to the closest lockable door. Thankfully, a bathroom.

 _Fuck,_ he thinks.

He's got a heart beating like a drumbeat of immediate regret and remorse. What is he thinking, hoping he can do this? _Can't even watch them kiss._

_They're beautiful together. What do they need me for?_

He flips down the toilet seat, perching on top of it and staring down at his feet. All he can hear is a rushing, beating sound in his ears.

Gripping onto his knees with both of his hands and digging his fingers into his skin, Lovett forces himself to take a deep breath. He keeps going until his lungs are full, then holds it until the rushing in his ears dies back a little.

Maybe now they'll realise they were idiots for asking him. They did not invite him into this for him to freak out over a kiss.

Even just the idea makes him shiver, gritting his teeth. He'd wanted to join them. He'd wanted to keep watching, and join them, and run, and he doesn't know how to make that last impulse disappear when it's the only one he's ever practiced.

He wants to be included. He feels needy and clingy and also, simultaneously, like he’ll crawl out of his own skin if they actually touch him.

There's a knock on the door. It's soft and hesitant, just like Ronan’s voice is when he says, “Lovett? Is everything okay?”

Lovett stares at the door, chest tight. He has to stop making Ronan sound like that. It's not good for his _own_ health.

“Tommy's, um…” Ronan continues, trailing off. “Could you just let us know that you're okay?”

 _Objection: leading the witness,_ Lovett would say if he thought it'd really lighten the tone like throwing lawyer jokes at Ronan usually does, especially when Tommy's there to giggle helplessly.

“I'm okay,” he says instead. It’s as much as he can manage convincingly. He's busy thinking. Because the thing is, he's in this now. Either he pussies out and ruins at least two relationships, potentially many more, or he dives right in.

If he bellyflops, at least he'll get used to the water?

He stands up, splashes some real water on his face, and gives himself a stern look in the mirror. “Man up,” he says quietly to his reflection. Then he walks to the door and unlocks it.

He braces his hand against the frame and braces himself for what's past it, then opens the door, locks eyes with a worried-looking Ronan, and steps into his space.

Though he'd meant to just kiss him, the angle and the surprise and the panic Lovett's staving off all make the moment between stepping up to Ronan and touching lips to his feel like an agonising eternity. But then the moment-before-the-kiss ends, and Lovett's kissing Ronan, and a moment later Ronan's kissing back. Ronan's makes a contented sound, a bit deeper than a sigh, against Lovett's mouth. He gently touches his fingers to Lovett's wrist.

They sway, ever so slightly, with the pattern of their kiss.

It's _lovely_.

Rather than the skin-crawling-off-his-body he'd expected, the frantic panic under Lovett's skin settles as Ronan kisses back, keeping it slow, and calm, and gentle.

Lovett's not sure he wants it to ever end.

Ronan pulls back after several kiss-lengths of time and mumbles, “Tommy…” against Lovett's lips, though, so Lovett, around more kisses, says, “yeah,” and, “mind if I do this to him?”

Ronan answers with a grin and by beginning to walk backwards, still kissing Lovett, towards his bedroom.

At the door, Lovett pulls back. Impulsively, he kisses Ronan on the cheek, then pushes the door open.

Tommy, for the second time in Lovett's recent memory, looks up at him from where he's sitting on the bed and gives him the most forlorn, heartbreaking look. It's a look that says, _I think I’ve ruined us_. It's a look that stops Lovett in his tracks for a second, heartbeat back in his ears, beating a double time, until Ronan touches the small of his back as if to propel him forward.

He makes it to Tommy. He cups Tommy's face in his hands and says, “sorry, needed to psyche myself up,” across Tommy's lips, and kisses him.

Kissing Ronan had been stunning. It had been far better than he'd remembered, and far less terrifying than he'd made himself believe. Kissing Tommy, though, is a first, and it is more terrifying, and it is more than any of his white-noise inflicted daydreams ever managed to be.

He sinks into it like a warm bath. Like his most blissful daydream of what intimacy might, in an ideal world, be like. Tommy circles his arms around Lovett's thighs and Lovett thinks, _oh, okay. This is worth it. This could be worth maybe anything_.

It’s a big, terrifying thought, but Tommy’s arms are strong and firm, holding him up if he needs it, braced against the back of his thighs as Lovett leans over him.

Tommy pulls back a tiny bit, speaking against Lovett’s mouth loud enough for both he and Ronan to hear. “I’ve been on way too unpredictable an emotional rollar coaster today,” he tells them. Lovett rolls his eyes.

“Oh, sure, and we’ve been laughing bystanders,” he says, punishing Tommy with another kiss, which might be counterproductive but is definitely good, objectively, so fuck it.

A careful hand touches Lovett’s lower back, thumb dipping under Lovett’s shirt to reach his skin for a quick, electrifying caress. Ronan’s other hand appears at the back of Tommy’s neck to tug gently at the hair there as Ronan rests his hip against Lovett’s, leaning his whole side against his in a full-body line of heat. He leans close and kisses Lovett’s jaw until Lovett can’t stand it any more and breaks away from Tommy to kiss Ronan instead.

And yeah, Lovett’s waiting for the moment when all this gets to be too much for him, but for as long as he’s still sinking into the warm underwater feeling of what they’re letting him join, he’s not going to ruin anything by doing anything dumb.

In the meantime, Ronan is smiling against his mouth as he pulls back, turning to kiss Tommy again.

It’s better, much better, watching them together with their hands holding him against the both of them. Tommy’s arms around Lovett’s legs have him standing so close their knees knock against each other. Lovett watches the brush of blonde eyelashes against two sets of pale cheeks, a distorted mirror of each other, and admires the contrasting shades of pinks in their lips.

He gets a little lost in it.

“How have I not noticed before how alike to look at you two are?” Lovett muses out loud. “Do I have a type?”

Ronan and Tommy break apart and into laughter.

“There’s an outside chance, yeah,” Ronan tells him.

Lovett offers them a sly half-smile. “Blond and bossy,” he suggests, already laughing as Ronan hip checks him and Tommy says, “hey…” as if he’s really wounded by it.

But then Ronan says, “if it’s bossy you want, I can give you bossy,” and levels Lovett with a look that sears straight through him. He’s glad once again for the hold on him Tommy has, especially when Ronan leans further into his space to whisper in his ear, “hold his hand. It’ll devastate him.”

Lovett’s heart beating in time is becoming a novelty, and it skips again as Ronan’s words register fully. _Oh, sure,_ he thinks. _It’ll devastate_ **_Tommy_**. Nevertheless, he takes one of Tommy’s hands from his own hip and laces their fingers, watching as Tommy’s eyes soften and he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. He does look pretty floored. Lovett sneaks a half-surprised, half-grateful smile at Ronan, who grins back.

His fingers and Tommy’s look sweet together, he thinks. He’s always been self-conscious about his hands — he jokes about them being dainty only because the alternative is being overtly embarrassed by how they’re objectively on the smaller side. There’s something sweet about the contrast between Tommy’s hand and his, though.

There must have been a time, he realises, when he thought romance was just this. Just holding someone else’s hand and telling them you liked them.

“Lovett,” Tommy says, gently. “What’s on your mind?”

“Huh?”

Lovett blinks a couple of times, looking up from Tommy and his laced hands on his hip to see Tommy’s tilted face.

“You went quiet,” Tommy explains, voice soft.

Lovett looks back at their hands, wound together, missing one of Ronan’s but otherwise almost perfect. “Not that it hasn’t been lovely,” Lovett starts, tone artificially light. “But everything’s been pretty PG-13 so far. Could we work out what’s next? Because I have no idea how to even start incorporating three people and I’m hoping you guys did your research before you attempted to proposition me.”

“…Well,” Ronan says, after a long pause during which both of their arms had briefly tightened around him. “Tommy really wants to blow you, and I’d really like to watch.” He shrugs. “Beyond that, we were hoping for input from you and for some instincts to kick in.”

“ _Ménage à trois_ instincts?” Lovett asks, not feeling very in control of what’s coming out of his mouth but pleased all the same when Tommy and Ronan laugh obligingly. Tommy leans his face against Lovett’s chest, which, though probably an opportunistic hiding of a blush, is still flattering.

“Something like that,” Ronan tells him, laughter still infecting the pitch of his voice. “So?” he asks, fingers twisting through the hair on the back of Tommy’s head as if to only incidentally pull him back and away from the sanctuary of Lovett’s sternum. “Will you let him suck you?”

“He, uh,” Lovett begins, stumbling over it. “He likes it?”

Ronan shifts from splitting his attention between Lovett and Tommy pretty evenly to focusing his heavy gaze just on Lovett for a moment, watching and, it feels like, deconstructing him. Then he shifts his look to Tommy, raising an eyebrow as if to ask the question himself.

Tommy clears his throat, blushing everywhere that’s visible.

“Yeah,” Tommy says, voice sounding rough already. “Yeah, Lo’, I’m really- I like it.” He flicks a glance at Ronan, taking in the smile and nod he recieves for doing so, before adding, “I love it. I’d love to, um, suck you. Please.”

Now Lovett’s the one sending all his blood to his face.

And he’s thinking, _oh fuck, shit, fuck, okay,_ to himself, doing everything he can to keep it off his face. Hoping what does show will look like uncomplicated anticipation as he hears himself say, “That’d… yeah. Um. Okay. Sure.”

It's all semi-awkward fumbling and hardly breathing on his part from there.

~~~

A part of him had definitely been hoping, as they moved from the stuff he always likes from them, to the stuff he sometimes has liked in short snatches of time with others, to stuff he's never enjoyed, that the two of them will be the magic key to unlock him. That being with people he feels so much for will be enough.

It isn't a small part of him that's doing the hoping. If someone used a silhouette of his body as a graph to show how much of himself is longing for that possibility, he thinks maybe only from his eyes up would be purely cynical and dead to hope.

The perfect parts go like this:

  * Watching them. Watching them and getting to stamp down on the instinct to look away as they kiss and strip each other, cutting quick, burning looks his way making it abundantly clear that they like — really like — that he's watching.


  * Ronan naked behind him, Lovett still fully clothed, pulling Lovett back against his chest and holding him against his body for long, perfect moments as he kisses him and plays with Lovett's hair.


  * Tommy cupping Lovett's face in both his hands and whispering, “I can't believe I get this with you,” before kissing him softly, almost shyly, only breaking away to moan as Ronan kisses his neck.


  * Tugging gently at Ronan’s hair as he kisses Tommy’s neck; feeling Tommy's full-body shiver as Ronan reacts with a scrape of teeth.


  * Ronan asking, “is this okay?” right after they work together to press Lovett down on the bed, hold him there for a moment, just looking, then loosen their hold. Ronan's Cheshire Cat grin as Lovett laughs, breathless and overwhelmed and enjoying it? Still clothed, still soft, but breathless and flushed and enjoying it.


  * After, watching them together again. Watching Ronan go to town on Tommy’s dick and getting to reach out to get hands in both blond heads of hair to ground himself in this new, shaky feeling. Knowing he can lean over and kiss Tommy's slack lips whenever he gets to feeling steady enough. Feeling the electricity between them and knowing they want him in it but knowing he can take a break, now, too, to just watch his two boys.



There's a lot of good. A lot that's perfect. The parts that make him start to get a little itchy, though — start to feel a little like he's in danger of checking out of his own head — go like this:

  * Tommy and Ronan bracketing him, slowly peeling his clothes away, kissing his skin and touching the places they uncover as he holds onto Tommy’s waist.


  * Tommy kissing over his belly, then kissing his cock until it's half-hard when he takes it into his mouth.


  * Turning his face into Ronan's throat as Tommy sucks him.


  * The taste when Tommy kisses him after he comes in Tommy's mouth, and then the dissonance of watching Ronan and Tommy kiss, hearing Ronan moan, and feeling encased in glass.



And in between, there's one moment where Lovett can't hold back from breaking away and saying, “ _stop_ ” and then “sorry” as he pushes Tommy's hands off his bare belly. The second they're gone he can breathe again, chasing away the feeling of devastating vulnerability at having Tommy’s hands on that part of his body in particular.

Now, he wonders why that of all things had been unbearable, and has no idea. Just knows it had been too much in a final and unbearable way where the rest wasn't.

The rest is too much, but manageable. Tempered by the perfect moments and the feeling that all this has a purpose, because it means he gets to keep them. By the end of it, he hasn't been unlocked, but he is laid out against Tommy’s side, Ronan lying opposite him, their hands connected on Tommy's stomach.

“You're gorgeous together,” Ronan tells them, kissing first Lovett's palm, then Tommy’s shoulder.

Lovett makes a noise of complaint. “That's my line,” he tells them, trying to sound even a tiny bit indignant but not managing to.

He feels a little shaken and is waiting for and dreading the moment when this much skin on skin will become unbearable, but he also feels warm and soft tucked against Tommy’s side.

Tommy traces his fingertips up and down Lovett's arm, and when it does get too much Lovett doesn't want it gone completely. So he grabs Tommy's wrist and pulls his hand to his own curls, demanding, “sort out my hair, you monster,” in a voice which sounds languid to his own ears.

Ronan grins, watching them.

“That was okay, right?” Tommy asks. He's lowered his voice to a deep curl of smoke, looking between Ronan and Lovett with a satisfied smile ready but hidden by hesitation. “You both liked it?”

Ronan, apparently feeling demonstrative, rolls his eyes at Lovett before taking hold of Tommy's chin and kissing him soundly for several moments. “Stop worrying,” he tells Tommy when they finally part. “You did good.”

Tommy, so discretely Lovett wouldn't know it were he not pressed all up against Tommy’s side, shivers. A hundred possibilities dawn on Lovett from that one reaction and send him off in a momentary mental spiral until Tommy and Ronan both look to him for confirmation and he remembers Tommy’s sweet, earnest question and how he's going to need to get a little creative about the truth in order to answer it.

Tommy's hands stills in Lovett's hair, a frown forming between his eyes.

“You were perfect, both of you,” Lovett tells them, resisting the urge to hide his face in his pillow or Tommy's neck as the combined force of Tommy and Ronan’s happiness and relief burst onto their faces.

“So…” Ronan touches Lovett's wrist with his thumb. “No running?” he asks, tentatively. There's a vulnerability in the softness of his mouth, like he's still not sure he gets to smile this time, that breaks Lovett's heart.

Lovett shakes his head. He can't speak because he can't guarantee what'll come out, but it turns out that doesn't matter, because he soon has two very enthusiastic kisses on his lips that trade off until his lips are bruised a deep red and he has sunk deep into the bed in satisfaction.

~~~

A little later, after they have taken trips to the bathroom and Tommy has brought them all drinks and they've kissed more than Lovett's been kissed in his entire life, Ronan curls a leg around Tommy's and gives him a look that could scorch. He touches Lovett’s hip, too, questioningly, his thumb dipping close to Lovett's dick in a way that shocks him out of a reverie of uncomplicated touching.

Tommy and Ronan grin at each other. Tommy lunges across the few inches between them for a hard, wet kiss, tangling his fingers in Lovett's hair.

Lovett's skin crawls.

He pulls gently away, putting no more than a couple of inches between them.

They break from each other to look at him, Ronan pushing himself up to sit as he frowns.

“Hey,” Lovett says, nearly whispering because he almost feels in danger of spoiling everything. All of it. “Keep going, I want to see,” he tells them. He waggles his eyebrows and attempts a leer, happy with the identical indulgent smiles it puts on their faces. Better. Much better. “I'm still just a bit…” he says, pulling a face, gesturing as generally as it is possible to towards his crotch.

Tommy, who had held on to a little bit of a frown even through the eyebrow waggling, says, “oh, hey, we can wait.”

Lovett shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Really, go on. You have any idea how much I've wanted to get to be with you when you do this, even? I'm good.”

Ronan's expression softens into understanding while Tommy, predictably, blushes. He bites his lip until Lovett reaches out and pushes his chin so he turns his face back towards Ronan, who obliges by kissing him out of his shyness.

Lovett props himself up against the headboard, watching, thinking, _they're the most perfect thing I'll ever see,_ and, most importantly: _they're worth it._

~~~

There's a lot of that kind of thing over the next few weeks. A lot of keeping a track of all the things that add up to being worth it.

He keeps a mental note of the little things that're perfect and happening because he's with them, and balances it against the things he'd take any opportunity to avoid given the chance. Being with Ronan and Tommy is so close to perfect, though, that he's always in credit with himself, in his brain.

~~~

Lovett volunteers to tell Favs and Emily for selfish reasons.

One added benefit is the way Tommy's invisible eyebrows climb towards his hairline when he says it.

“What the fuck?” Tommy asks. “You, Jon Lovett, want to be the one who tells Favs?”

Lovett smiles as innocently as he can. “He should hear it from me,” he says reasonably. Tommy continues to look at him in a perplexed way for a moment, but finally gives up, shrugging.

“Do you want to volunteer to tell my mom, too?” Ronan asks, amused by them both as he so often seems to be.

Lovett heads back to their flat for a change of clothes, a shave and to brush his teeth, mostly, but knowing he's going to tell Favs, assuming he sees him, keeps his brain from spinning out over everything else too badly.

Tactical worrying, Tommy calls it.

He texts Favs on the walk over.

_u up?_

He recieves a series of question marks and a confused _yes? it’s 6pm?_ in return. A couple more texts back and forth establish that Favs is at their place with Emily and that they’re wearing clothes and not busy, and finally Lovett texts _i have something huge to tell you_ just as he reaches the door so he can’t chicken out.

They’re in the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” they ask together, speaking over each other. Em looks tentatively optimistic. Favs, maybe because he has more on the line, doesn’t.

Lovett gets himself a coke, hoists himself onto the kitchen counter, and steals a handful of chips from one of the two plates piled up high with food, sitting there practically waiting for him.

“So,” he says, around crunches. “I’ve got big news.”

Em moves closer, a soft look on her face right up to the moment when she pokes him mercilessly in the kidneys.

“You said,” she says, unimpressed. “Tell us!”

Lovett thinks, _I’ve got boyfriends_ , practicing it, and feels his lips spread into a smile. It sounds kind of unreal in his own head. He’s almost afraid to say it outloud, in case the spell breaks finally. _I’m dating Tommy and Ronan._

At the smile, though, Em laughs, shocked and delighted.

“Oh, shit,” she says. “You’re smiling! Tell us why you’re smiling, Lovett. Come on. Don’t hold out on us.”

Favs slides in next to Em, pulling her into a side-on hug. He’s looking tentatively less pessimistic. Still unsure, though.

“We, uh, talked,” Lovett tells them. “We went for pizza, and talked, and made out a lot, and we’re going to, uh, keep doing that.” He flicks a look at Favs’ face but can’t quite seem to hold it and doesn’t manage to long enough to read it. “We’re… They want me to be part of their, um, relationship?”

“Holy shit.”

“Oh my god!”

Lovett steals some more chips, scooping cream cheese in one because it’s there.

“You’re dating Tommy? And Ronan?” Favs asks, or states, or something in between, like he’s mulling it over in his own head more than anything. “God… wow. That’s… a solution.”

At the tone of his voice Lovett chances another look at him, finding him smiling, still wide-eyed and disbelieving, but maybe happy, too. Lovett makes a vague sound of agreement.

“Is it—” Lovett starts, and stops. “Um. Are you going to be okay with it, though? Because it’s a lot, and we know that. I know you’ve felt kind of in the middle ever since you even found out I liked Tommy, never mind all of this extra crap, so—”

“Lovett,” Favs says, laughter filtering through even as he puts a firm, serious hand on Lovett’s knee. “I’m good with whatever makes you happy.”

The look Em gives Favs — complete with a nose-crinkle which says, _why do I like this dork so much?_ — is saccharine and proof positive that they’re in love; that they’re the messure Lovett should be matching his feelings for Tommy and Ronan to if he wants to know if he’s really in the deep end.

“Okay,” Lovett says. He gives Favs a momentary genuine smile, feeling an understanding cross between them like static, before he adds, “at least now I know I’ll win ‘who gets to choose which movie we watch’ contests because I have Tommy automatically on side.”

Favs rolls his eyes, letting go of Emily to pull Lovett into a hug.

“I’m happy for you, idiot,” he says into Lovett’s ear. “Don’t ruin it yet.”

Lovett laughs. He returns the hug, and resists the urge to get fatalistic over the future tense of Favs’ sentiment.

It’s enough to be happy, and to have Favs and Emily know, and to feel capable, for once, of making all his hang-ups die away in the face of how in love he’s pretty sure he’s on the way to being and almost certain he’s allowed to be.

~~~

Lovett’s first instinct, when Ronan tells them he’s going to tell his mom, now, that day, is to give him as much space as possible. He’s up and making an excuse to leave when Tommy laughs, snagging his wrist, and pulls him down to sit half-on Tommy’s lap.

“Where did you think you were going?” Ronan asks, scowling.

“Um.” Lovett looks to Tommy for clues. Tommy is still silently laughing at him, but does share a look with Lovett that’s trying to let him in on the joke. “Don’t you want some space?” Lovett asks Ronan.

He’s imagining telling his own parents. The quick tempers and confused tears that would follow; all the old dramas that would get dredged up. The dramatic hang ups and call-backs. There’d potentially be draftings in of other family members to take sides, and Lovett’s one Middle School girlfriend would, for a certainty, get brought up at least once.

Ronan, though, is frowning. “No?” he says.

“They have a very good relationship,” Tommy tells him, in a voice that says, really, substitute ‘good’ for ‘strange’. “It’s sweet,” he adds, much more genuinely. Ronan play-swats at him anyway.

All the same, Tommy and Lovett occupy themselves in not-listening-in as much as possible while Ronan makes the call, makes normal mom-talk, and finally tells her. They talk about the station a fair bit; kiss a little, as the mood takes them. Make occassional disbelieving faces over how level and civil and _sweet_ Ronan’s conversation seems to be from just the one side.

With no warning, Lovett finds Ronan’s phone thrust in front of his face.

“Mom wants to speak to you,” he says. “It’ll be fine; just be yourself.”

Lovett thinks that’s a terrible idea. And either Tommy agrees or he’s just delighted by the face Lovett pulls to non-verbally get that point across to Ronan, but either way Tommy bursts into laughter and becomes useless as an ally to him.

Wishing fervently he were anywhere else, Lovett takes the phone.

“Um, hi, Mrs Farrow,” he says. He’s never spoken to the parent of someone he was dating before, aforementioned Middle School girlfriend notwithstanding. He’s pretty sure his inexperience shows in his voice. “I’m Lovett. Er… Jon. Jonathan?”

“Hmm,” a voice says. It’s a kind, humour-filed voice, currently tempered by a little bit of steel. It sounds exactly like old Hollywood should sound. “I like Jonathan,” she tells him.

“Okay?”

Tommy has hidden his face in his hands and his shoulders are shaking in what looks, now, to be a full-blown giggle fit. Ronan is watching him with his typical blank-faced expression, the one Lovett now thinks might only come out when Ronan is truly nervous.

“So, how do you feel about it being the three of you, now?” she asks him. Which, he guesses that’s fair enough. She can ask about his Major and his plans for after college once she’s figured out if he’s more than just a temporary hang-on.

“Um,” he says, and has got to stop saying. “Good?”

She laughs, sounding indulgent and a tiny bit disappointed as she says, “okay, and what else?”

“Uh…” Lovett hesitates. He does feel good about it, but it’s not like that’s honest. Ronan’s secret nervousness and Tommy’s giggling nervousness are weighing him down. He doesn’t want to say how he really feels to a near-perfect stranger. He doesn’t want to say how he really feels in-front-of-but-not-to them. He also thinks anything less than that will not stand up in the court of Mia Farrow.

“I do feel good. And terrified.” He pauses, letting himself laugh at his own expense for a brief moment. “But, um.” He wishes he were someone who felt confident just saying these things, the way Favs can. “I know I’m happy with them both like I wasn’t on my own, and wouldn’t be with just one of them. So. Good, and petrified, and, um… hopeful.”

“Oh, good,” Mia says. Her voice is suddenly so warm Lovett’s bowled over by it. “That is good to hear.” She laughs, and he finds himself laughing with her. “So, Jonathan, tell me about yourself. What’s your Major?”

They talk for around twenty minutes, Ronan and Tommy relaxing into each other now the initial tension can let itself be known in honesty and leave their bodies. Mia and Lovett talk about Lovett, his family, the dog in his, Tommy and Favs’ building, the station, Mia’s family, Mia’s farm, Mia's dogs, and Ronan as a little precocious genius child.

Finally she says, “could you put me on to Tommy, please, Jonathan? I imagine he’s fretting still and I’d like to not keep him that way for too long.”

Lovett laughs, studying the tension still held in Tommy’s shoulders and saying, “how did you know that?”

He doesn’t get a clear answer, but does get a clear and surprisingly loving goodbye. He hands the phone to Tommy and just looks at Ronan for a moment. “No wonder you’re…” he says, gesturing to encompass all of what Ronan is. He laughs, blushing and looking pleased, and says, “I know, right?”

Tommy stays on the phone for another ten minutes, answering questions in a way that makes it clear this is a continuing conversation, before handing the phone off to Ronan. Ronan kisses them both on the forehead before standing from his bed and leaving the room, chatting to his mom in a quiet, satisfied voice that puts a curse of smiles on Lovett’s face.

Tommy kisses him. “I think we passed,” he says, grinning as they laugh in relief into the press of their lips.

~~~

Tommy is bringing them both drinks; coffee for Ronan and himself and soda for Lovett. This seems to be a post-orgasm ritual for him. He's always the first to get up, the one who makes sure they're all comfortable, and the one who fetches them refreshments. It's very sweet. Something that both surprises Lovett and feels completely right.

“You like watching us, huh?” Ronan asks. He's lounging back against Tommy's headboard, playing with Lovett's hair. That's another ritual; Lovett gets his hair played with, after. He obviously hasn't shared this detail, but it helps him to settle. It's grounding.

Lovett shrugs, though he guesses he does ask to watch a fair percentage of the time. Sometimes just for a bit while he gets his bearings; occasionally as soon as things go below the waist. He guesses he maybe needs to rely on it less.

“Sorry,” he says. “Is that weird?”

“No, that's not what I meant,” Ronan assures him. He leans over Lovett to kiss him on his forehead. He gets really loose and tactile, after. Cuddly. It's… really nice. “I just meant: are we giving you what you want?”

 _Now there's a minefield,_ Lovett thinks.

“I’d tell you if there were something I wanted,” he says, which is true. He can usually get what he wants without saying, though, is the thing. Like Ronan’s hand in his hair. That's really easy to get, now he's allowed to have it.

“That's good,” Ronan replies, mildly. “Because you know, if you _did_ have a feet thing, we’d work something out.”

“I do not-”

“What did I just hear?” Tommy cuts in, looking delighted by the idea the way a bro friend would be, rather than a boyfriend who might have to let Lovett... suck his toes? Lovett reflects on the fact that he knows nothing about fetishes, and moves on. Tommy passes them their drinks before laying crosswise across them, lying back across both sets of their legs.

“No,” Lovett says on a groan.

“It was a hypothetical,” Ronan tells him, kissing Tommy in thanks for his drink. “I want Lovett to tell us if there's something he wants, besides to watch us together sometimes.”

“Oh.” Tommy blinks at Lovett from upside down. “Are you not enjoying it?”

Lovett rolls his eyes, aware that it’s an obvious defensive measure. “Sure, I just hate getting to watch my two criminally attractive boyfriends,” he says, overdoing the sarcasm. “If a younger version of me could see me now, he'd be _weeping_.”

Tommy laughs obligingly, lounging back against Ronan's thighs as if to show off just how attractive they are, next to each other. Like two Greek demi-gods, if only they weren't both so pale. Nordic demi-gods? Lovett’s Myths and Legends 101 class hadn't covered much past Odin and Frigg and Thor, but maybe. He watches appreciatively, anyway, as Tommy kisses Ronan's bare, freckled knee.

While distracted by Tommy, Lovett misses Ronan gearing up to be serious and stubborn, so his firm tone startles Lovett when Ronan says, “I’ve been thinking, and I think the two of you should arrange to fuck without me.”

Tommy blinks at Ronan, frown appearing as if drawn down over his content expression like a curtain over a stage. Lovett imagines his face must look much the same.

“But,” Tommy starts, cutting himself off to push up until he's leaning on his hands and not lounged across them. “We agreed we'd keep all that for the three of us.”

Lovett sits up, too, folding his legs under him and crossed over, dislodging Ronan's hand in his hair. They're all still naked, but touching in far fewer places now than they had been just a few moments ago.

“We did,” Ronan agrees. “And I'm not saying you have to, but I think it might be good for us. You two together is the only combination that hasn't happened yet.”

Lovett ignores the uncomfortable swooping of his stomach to study Ronan closely. “We aren't waiting for a chance to get rid of you, Ronan,” he says, too upset by the idea to sound anything better than slightly sarcastic and very curt.

Not that Ronan seems to mind. His eyes widen at first, as he takes in what Lovett had said, before his cheeks apple as he beams and says, “I know. Really, I know that.” He gives Tommy a reassuring look, too. Then he continues, steadily saying, “I just think you're both a little hesitant with each other, and it'd be good for you to get rid of the last level of awkwardness without feeling like you have an audience.”

“You think we're still awkward with each other?”

“You don’t count as an audience.”

Lovett had had both thoughts, but he’d only said the one. He shares a look of understanding with Tommy, and Ronan, watching them, says, “see, this is what I mean.” He gestures between them. “Look at how on the same page you are. You’re like that with everything. And then we take our clothes off and it’s like you both have three hands and no clue if you’re allowed to touch each other with any of them.”

Tommy turns a bright red; a truly mortified color. Lovett bites his cheek to stop from saying something cruel in return. _Ronan means it as a good thing_ , he reminds himself. _He’s pushing us, not attacking._

“It’s an adjustment,” Tommy says. “It’s… We never even _talked_ about sex before you.”

Lovett is torn. He’s craving the feeling of Ronan or Tommy grabbing onto his wrist or pinning his legs under theirs or even just lying flat on top of him for the way any one of those would take making an excuse and running away from this discussion away. He’s also feeling way too naked and way too close to both of them right now, while he’s cycling through the demons he’s never been able to deal with. Because this must be his fault. Ronan’s seen something’s wrong — he’s diagnosed and pinpointed and highlighted it, as he does — and now he’s looking for the source. And he’s not that far from it.

“Is it bad?” Lovett finds himself asking, looking at Ronan. “I mean, for you?”

Ronan and Tommy swap their attention over to Lovett, entirely, which, in the right circumstances, is all he wants in the world. These are not those circumstances.

“No! God no,” Ronan says. He reaches a hand over to Lovett’s, bumping their fingers together. He does the same to Tommy. “It’s been _so_ good. I think that’s pretty obvious. I hope it is.” He hesitates, kicking Lovett’s heartbeat up a notch from where it’d already gone up a drive with the blissed out expression Ronan had had on his face, thinking about it, and the thing his voice had done where it’d half-broken over “good”. He adds, “I just feel selfish. I’m not convinced I’m not the person getting the most out of this, and I really want us to equally love being together.”

This would either be the perfect time to tell them, or the worst. Either way, Lovett’s mouth is suddenly dry, his heart is fluttering in a panicked, bad way, and he’s completely incapable of saying anything, let alone the truth.

“Well,” Tommy says, breaking into Lovett’s thoughts. “I’m getting what I want. I do love it.” He’s smiling kindly at Ronan, crinkles round his eyes making him look somehow hotter and worry free.

Lovett laughs, not a little weakly. “So we’re not going to talk about how much you like it when we tell you what to do?” It sounded cute in his head. It mostly sounds mean out loud.

Tommy flushes again, but he either genuinely doesn’t mind Lovett bringing it up or is a very good liar, because he laughs and says, “okay, sure, so I could stand it if you did that more.” He shrugs affably.

Ronan nudges Lovett’s fingers. “Thing is,” he says. “We know that about Tommy and he knows we know it, even if we haven’t talked about it.”

“And you think I’m keeping it from you,” Lovett finishes for him.

Ronan shrugs one shoulder.

“That, or you and Tommy need to get more comfortable. I don’t know,” Ronan admits. “I just feel like I don’t know what you want, and we seem to be falling into a pattern of things I’m not even sure you enjoy.”

Lovett casts around for something, anything to say that isn’t the obvious elephant in, if not the room, at least his own head. Tommy takes the pause to touch Lovett’s ankle. He traces a pattern on Lovett’s ankle bone, making him shiver and inexplicably teary. He watches his and Ronan’s hands carefully as he gets himself under control.

“Tommy,” he says finally. Aiming for a jokey tone. “Come on, have you ever known me not demand what I want as loudly and as obnoxiously as is humanly possible?”

He’s aiming for a laugh. Instead, Tommy hmmms a vague agreement, sounding a little unsure, or at least non-commital.

“I guess not,” Tommy says after another few moments of silence during which Lovett listens to his heartbeat and studiously counts breaths in and out. “But you’re also not meeting our eyes, so… I don’t know.”

Lovett frowns, thinking, _why can’t you just laugh and say, “sure, Lovett, you are obnoxious.”_ He turns his glare on Tommy and says, “how about now?”

Tommy watches him steadily back. He twists his lips up at one side into an apologetic smile, but doesn’t change his answer.

“Right,” Lovett says, looking away. Feeling a bit unreal.

He stands up from the bed because he just can’t sit still anymore, then finds his shirt and his boxers because he can’t be naked anymore, either.

“Lovett?”

“Are you-?”

“I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere,” he says, sounding short and petty. Out of the corner of his eye he watches as Tommy shifts up the bed to sit next to Ronan, pulling his knees up so he can hug them to his chest.

“You just need clothes?” Ronan asks, voice a flatline of what would sound like disinterest if Lovett didn’t see how keenly his eyes are following him.

“Yes,” Lovett tells him, briefly glaring at him. He makes himself stop as he realises he’s started pacing like a caged animal at the zoo. Puts his hands on his hips. Someone told him it’ll help him feel powerful. He’d rather hunch up, honestly, but he’s commited to it now, and at least it gives him something else to channel into his glare as he looks at the two of them on the bed.

 _Am I deflecting?_ he asks himself, deep in the back of his mind. _Because I know I’m genuinely upset but I don’t know if it’s fair who’s having to deal with it._

“Can you just say if this isn’t working for you?” Lovett asks, voice too quiet. “Outright. Don’t talk around it. Tell me if I’m fucking it up, because I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but I have not done this before _.”_ He’s shaking. His voice has a tremble to it. Ronan and Tommy are watching him with suddenly breaking shock. “Not the threesome thing,” he continues. “Not the relationship thing, and, honestly, I’ve not even had that much sex. So please don’t tell me you’re worried I’m not getting what I want if it’s really that I’m not giving you what _you_ want. Or… need.” He has more to say, more that's bubbling under the surface that he's pushing down, and he clamps his mouth shut so he doesn't let any more of it escape because Ronan and Tommy's expressions are already heart-breaking.

Ronan and Tommy, in sync, blink at him. Tommy’s mouth has dropped open.

“What?” Ronan says. “Lovett, _no._ ”

Tommy stands up, moving slowly, reaching out for him, and Lovett lets him come. Lets him touch his shoulders and pull him in and slot Lovett’s face into the crook of his neck.

Lovett feels too numb to actually cry, but he feels wrung out and empty. Tommy’s large hand moving on his back feels good all the same.

“Sorry,” Lovett murmurs, lips moving against Tommy’s skin.

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” Tommy tells him. He starts moving them back towards the bed, then gets Lovett on the bed and between his and Ronan’s bodies. It leaves Lovett stretched out between them, clothed and shaking. A Ronan-sized hand starts playing with his hair and another one takes and holds onto Lovett’s wrist.

Ronan kisses the back of Lovett’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was the last thing I wanted to make you feel like that.”

Lovett jerkily nods.

“You aren’t fucking up,” Tommy tells him. Lovett feels Ronan’s hair shift against the back of his head in a way that might mean he’s nodding in agreement. “I’m really happy with you.”

“Me too,” Ronan says, muted and quiet. Lovett frees his arm from under himself and loops it across his stomach to hold onto Ronan’s hand, still holding onto Lovett’s other wrist. He squeezes Ronan’s hand under his.

It’s a good while later before Lovett thinks of something he can give them in answer to Ronan’s original question. He wakes himself up from a half-sleep, shifting to check if Tommy and Ronan are awake. Tommy’s clearly just got his eyes closed, opening them as he feels Lovett shift, and Ronan’s looking at the ceiling.

“I thought of something,” Lovett tells him, turning onto his back but keeping a Ronan’s hand around his wrist. “You can give me more of this,” he says, flicking another look between the two of them. Tommy leans up on his elbow to look down at both of them. “I like being held down, or held onto, but not, uh… Not actually during sex. After.”

Lovett bites his lower lip while he waits for their response. Tommy makes another hmmming noise, tightening his arms around Lovett a little.

Ronan nods. “Okay,” he says. He flashes Lovett a quick, relieved smile. “We can do that.”

Lovett smiles back, relaxing again now he’s said it. “Cool,” he says. He looks at the ceiling, hesitating over the thought that goes along with admitting what he likes, which is why. Given he gave Ronan something like a relationship heart attack, though, he maybe owes them. He takes a steadying breath, then says, “I like knowing you don’t want me to go.”

Tommy’s arms tighten around him again, this time seemingly unconsciously. A moment later, he presses a kiss to the corner of Lovett’s eye.

“We never want you to go,” he says.

Ronan nods, his nose brushing against Lovett’s jaw. He curls his leg over Lovetts’ to pin them down, and Lovett can’t help but smile, closing his eyes to guard against the a watery overflow of too many mixed emotions.


	7. interlude: tommy

Ira drops a heavy messenger bag down on the coffee table in front of Tommy and bends to riffle through it. Tommy picks his to-go coffee cup up off the table, using a napkin Dan hands him to wipe up the spill from the drop of Ira’s bag. He shares a faintly surprised look with Dan.

“Hey,” Ira says distractedly. “I found this for you.” He holds out a book. Then, when Tommy takes it, he drops into the chair opposite him. “I’d have given it to Lovett but there’s no way he’d talk about it with you. I imagine you’re trying hard enough to be good at this that you’ll share.”

“Thanks?” Tommy says, looking at the cover. _Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits_ , it reads. Tommy flicks a look at Dan, who hasn’t looked at the book yet, and turns it over to the back to read the blurb.

“I’ve turned over some pages you and Ronan should read,” Ira says. “But really you should just read whatever seems relevant. You don’t have to figure out how to do what you’re doing on your own, and I think you’re the kind of guy who might like hearing some of this stuff from a book.”

Tommy frowns — he knows he’s got to have that crease in his forehead that Lovett’s taken to smoothing out with his thumb or, if he’s really happy, kissing away, and that he now knows Lovett’s been thinking about doing just that to for years. His stomach flips, thinking about it; he’s pretty sure the crease smooths itself. He flicks to one of the turned over pages. It’s in the middle of a chapter about jealousy so he’s not sure exactly what Ira wants him to see.

“Is this, like… a Lovett manual?” he asks. He flicks to the next marked page, which is also in the middle of a chapter. He scans through it, but nothing immediately jumps out at him as something that’ll help him navigate a relationship with Lovett specifically. Generally, sure, there’s some advice about communication he thinks the three of them could maybe stand to pay attention to.

Dan snorts in laughter.

“No,” Ira says, straightening up in his seat. “Though writing a manual for each other is another thing that’s not a bad idea in any relationship, especially a poly one.” He watches Tommy closely, unsmiling. “Look, Tommy, Lovett told me — after I got him drunk enough to get past the jokes and self-deprecation — that you’re being serious about this, the three of you.”

Tommy straightens in his chair, too. “We are,” he says. “I’m really serious about it.”

Ira nods. “Cool,” he says. “Then you should read this. It’s not going to give you everything you need to know or anything, _especially_ when it comes to Lovett, but I think it might help.”

Tommy bites his lip, worrying it for a moment.

“We’ve just been feeling our way through so far,” he says. “Is that… I mean... Is it that different to other relationships?”

Ira shrugs, flashing Tommy a proper smile finally. “I don’t know,” he says. “My thing is really different to your thing,” he adds, referring to what Lovett calls his harem and what Ira has referred to, once that Tommy knows of, as what he hopes is his college-length (or longer) slutty phase. “I just know it helped to not feel alone for me, at least, when I was first figuring out the whole… not just one person thing.”

Tommy looks back at the cover, tamping down on the impulse to reach over and give Ira a supportive shoulder clap.

“Thanks,” he says, hoping he sounds like he sincerely means it as much as he actually does. Dan nudges his knee with his own and the feeling grows, letting him look up at them both and smile.

“Okay, well,” Ira says, clapping his hands on his thighs in a way that seems to say _I'm done here._ “Good luck.” He gives Tommy a sloppy salute, Dan a nod, and leaves. 

“Didn't know you were friends…” Dan says after a pause.

Tommy laughs. “That was the longest direct conversation we've ever had,” he says. Quieter, he adds, “I think he's just protective of Lovett.”

Dan _hmmms_ in agreement. They sip their coffee and Tommy flicks absently through the book. He and Dan were supposed to be prepping the station line up for next semester, but Tommy’s now feeling scattered, brainwise.

Maybe Dan reads that in his bobbing knee, or maybe he’s just curious, because rather than get them back on track he says, “how's it going? You and Ronan, with Lovett?”

Tommy tilts his head, his stomach tightening. He flips to more random pages in Ira’s book as he tries to put a pin on why, exactly.

“It's not me and Ronan, then Lovett tagged on,” he says finally. “It's… you know. Lovett and Ronan and me, or me and Lovett and Ronan.” He flips the book up and says, “I'm sure there're words for what we're doing in here, but, so far, it's been great. I really… really like them both.”

Dan _hmmms_ again, nudging Tommy's shoulder with his own. “Good,” he says. “I was worried, you know. But if it's about the big stuff, it's maybe worth the risk.”

Tommy gives him a grateful, if cautious, smile. “If we just wanted a threesome, we'd have gone to… I don't know. Not Lovett.”

Dan nods, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Ira?” he offers, raising an eyebrow.

Tommy chokes on his coffee, heat going to his face. He hopes for a moment Dan’ll think he’s going red because of the spluttering he’s doing, but Dan just pats him on the back and keeps up his faintly judgemental, wry look.

“Shut up,” Tommy tells him. He shoves the book deep into his bag, where it stays until he gets home a few hours later.

~~~

He pulls his shoes off at the door, padding over to Lovett’s room as quietly as he can, listening closely for signs of life. His mouth feels dry; he finds himself wetting his lips and struggling not to shuffle as he hesitates, listening.

He hears a laugh. A Ronan one.

He pushes the door open.

They’re stretched out on Lovett’s bed; Ronan’s wearing a pair of Lovett’s pyjama bottoms. His hair’s a little mussed up, too, but they have controlers in their hands and, while they’re listing into each others’ space where they’re leaning up against the headboard at the top of the bed, they’re focused on the TV. At least until Tommy opens the door.

“Hey,” he says, watching Lovett hit pause before stepping in front of the screen. He nearly asks, _did it go well?_ because today’s the first day they’ve tried consciously spending time, on purpose, in twos. Ronan calls them _dates_ — partly, Tommy thinks, because it visibly makes Lovett squirm, in a good way — but Lovett’s equally invested. He’d been the one to insist they negotiate the rules, going over and over what was on and off the table. Tommy’s still looking at Ronan’s mussed up hair and pyjama pants, wondering how far through the _on the table_ list they got. Finally, he settles on: “Good day?”

“Wait, we’ve made some new rules,” Ronan tells him, not in answer, as Tommy lifts his knee to the bed. “First,” he continues, clearly enjoying his role. “No real pants on the bed.”

Tommy pauses, looking between them. He raises an eyebrow.

“It’s the rule, Tommy,” Lovett agrees. “Take them off.”

Tommy does his best to hide the fondness he’s feeling behind a wall of exasperation. “Really?” he asks. He’s already taking his pants off, though.

“Better,” Ronan says, beckoning Tommy up the bed. He doesn’t have a problem following that command. “Second,” Ronan says, curling his fingers around Tommy’s tshirt collar, pulling him close. “The last person to come home has to give people who waited for him a kiss.”

“Make it good, Vietor,” Lovett tells him. Tommy grins at him, then lets himself get pulled into a good, deep kiss by Ronan. It’s just the two of them in it for several minutes, then Tommy feels Ronan’s elbow bump against his arm and feels Lovett’s arm wrap around Tommy’s neck as he’s pulled into a messy, weird, three-way kiss.

There’s a lot more spit and Tommy forgets to breathe near the end, but for a moment or two he’s kissing both of them. He’s pressed into the sides of both of them. He’s surrounded by them both.

Ronan pulls away.

“I think we need to practice that more,” Tommy tells him. Them. Lovett laughs softly, dropping a quick kiss to Tommy’s shoulder.

“Later,” Ronan says, voice heavy with promise. Then he adds, his voice instantly lighter, “Third new rule: no distracting me from teaching Lovett how to not suck at _Ico_.”

He pulls Tommy down beside him. He ends up between the two of them, all their legs tangled. Lovett fidgets into comfortableness against Tommy’s other side, saying, “Fourth rule: this isn't a game you can win at, you competitive idiot. Tommy, tell him.”

Tommy settles in, Ira sliding to the back of his mind again until well after Lovett and Ronan have both killed the girl plaintively following their character three times at least, and after Lovett let Tommy try once, telling Ronan off for giving Tommy bad instructions when the girl dies within a minute.

Eventually, Tommy gets up to pee and stubs his toe on his bag on his way out. He swears a bunch, flipping them off when they laugh at him, and pulls out the heaviest, hardest thing in the bag. He tosses the book between Lovett and Ronan’s legs on the bed.

“Ira’s fault,” he says, before leaving to go to the bathroom.

Lovett and Ronan are curled together over the book when he gets back.

“Ira gave this to you?” Lovett asks as Tommy shuts the door and joins them, this time bracketting Lovett. Tommy nods, chin settling on Lovett’s shoulder.

They read through odd paragraphs together, reaching a paragraph that prompts them to talk in detail about what Lovett and Ronan had got up to that day so Tommy’s no longer guessing — a lot of making out, frotting, and what Ronan had called “a teenage cliché which resulted in the _no pants in bed_ rule.” Tommy takes that to mean they came in their pants. He thinks he probably should push them to use those words, but they’re both the good kind of squirmy and embarrassed and he doesn’t want to push them any further past that.

Plus, he likes to do a little bit of guessing.

Ronan thumbs one of the turned over pages, scanning through it. “Did you find things you thought we should look at?” he asks, flicking to the second one.

Tommy shakes his head. “Ira said me and you should read those bits,” he says. “I thought he meant this was a Lovett manual.”

Ronan snorts, something Tommy always finds adorable, but he’s too busy noticing the way Lovett’s frozen against him. It's barely visible, but very obvious with the way they’re pressed right up against each other.

Tommy sees Ronan notice, too — sees a muscle in his jaw tighten and the quick, confused look he flicks Tommy’s way. Hesitantly, Tommy touches Lovett’s wrist, wondering if he should try to hold onto it or if this isn’t the time. Lovett hardly seems to notice. He reaches instead for the book and flicks, quickly — too quickly for Tommy to follow — through each of the turned down pages.

“What made you think that?” he asks, approaching something casual. Ronan twists to lay his leg over both of Lovett’s.

Tommy shrugs. “He’s your friend. He was looking out for you. I figured he wanted your boyfriends to be equiped to not fuck up, maybe over specific things he knows you need us to not fuck up over.”

Lovett nods, jerkily. His eyebrows are drawn tightly across his forehead as he flicks, slower, through the turned-down pages.

“We fooled around not that long ago,” Lovett says, his voice strained. He swallows.

“You and Ira?” Ronan asks. Tommy rests his hand on Lovett’s thigh as Lovett nods. “Okay,” Ronan adds, accepting.

“I was jealous of the two of you,” Lovett continues. “And confused, because I liked you both.”

Tommy nods. He’d felt the same, except he’d never felt he had to hide it from Ronan since it was Ronan’s fault he’d even acknowledged it in the first place, so he hadn’t been alone in it. If he lets himself think too long about the shock of it for Lovett, he’s going to get sappy in a way Lovett really doesn’t appreciate.

“Did he help?” he asks instead.

Lovett shrugs, his frown softer and more pensive, now. “He didn’t hurt,” he says. Then, after another moment of thinking: “yeah, I think he did.”

Tommy kisses his hair. “Good,” he says.

Ronan kisses Lovett’s nose, then Tommy’s hand on Lovett’s shoulder. Tommy gently takes the book and lets it fall with a thump off the side of the bed. “Then that’s all you have to tell us, unless you’d like to share,” he adds.

Ronan wiggles his eyebrows ridiculously at Lovett. “Tommy wants you to share,” he tells him. Lovett is shocked into a half-gasp, half-laugh.

“Ira?!” he asks. “Tommy, Jesus, are there no limits to your crushes on our _employees_?”

Tommy rolls his eyes. He’s aware he’s blushing, once again, and he’s electing to ignore his biological weakness. “We employ no one, Lovett. No one has the money to pay students to talk about their hobbies on student radio, least of all us,” he says.

Lovett is on a roll, though.

“Answer me this: you’re in a hallway with two doors,” he says, gesturing. “There’s a sign on one door which tells you that me and Ronan are behind it, maybe naked; maybe in your choice of uniform. On the other, the sign says Ira, Kara and Louis are on the other side and they’ll berrate you about your family, background, and uncoolness until you orgasm. Which door do you go through?”

Tommy closes his eyes as if asking a higher power for patience. Really, he knows he’ll crack up if he looks at either Lovett or Ronan.

When Tommy opens his eyes, Ronan is shaking his head, giving Lovett as sad a look as he can muster. “We’ll never know the answer,” he says.

Tommy covers a laugh with a sound of outrage.

“You,” he says. “Obviously. Even if they were the ones in uniform.”

Lovett goes a lovely red even as he scoffs.

“Okay, new doors,” Lovett tells him. “Ronan, Kara and Ira are on one side; Louis and I are on the other.”

Tommy gives him an unimpressed look. “Are these supposed to be realistic?” he asks. “Because I don’t believe you and Louis could ever stop talking over each other long enough to have sex.”

Lovett rolls his eyes. “Does that mean you pick the other door?”

“No,” Tommy says, feigning a stretched kind of patience. Ronan’s sparkling eyes mirror what Tommy’s really feeling, though. This is perfect. Lovett’s an idiot to even be entertaining the idea Tommy’d want anything else. “I’d pick your door,” he continues. “Extricate you from whatever dumb argument you’d be having with Louis, then go to the other room to get Ronan.”

“And we’d stay with Kara and Ira?” Lovett adds, poking Tommy’s belly as if to prod him into admitting it.

Tommy shakes his head. Then, after worrying his bottom lip for a moment as he thinks, adds, “not in reality. I just want you two.”

Lovett, as if he can’t quite help himself, develops a self-satisfied, pleased smile. He tries to hide it by biting his lip, but Tommy knows that trick. He thinks he might have taught Lovett that trick.

“Maybe as a fantasy?” Ronan asks, steady and amused as ever.

Tommy is forced to actually think about it: Ronan and Lovett, but also Ira and Kara, maybe on a bed or shoved together in a tight space. Lovett’s world-building needs some work. Tommy shrugs, and Ronan pokes at Tommy’s belly like Lovett had.

“ _May_ be,” he admits. “But only that. And don’t tell any of them,” he adds, panicking slightly at the pleased look in Lovett’s eyes.

“Sure,” Ronan says, agreeable.

“Now let’s figure this out,” Lovett says, getting a faraway look in his eyes Tommy usually only gets to see during hours-long planning sessions for the station. “Does one of us go back for Louis? Did he come with us? I’ve got as much interest in fucking him as eating snails, but —”

“Only in Paris?” Tommy asks, interrupting, to fuck with Lovett and get that fond, exasperated swat of his hand against his shoulder.

“— it feels unfair to leave him out.”

Tommy lets Ronan and Lovett plan out his fantasy life in minute detail, interrupting to kiss either of them when the fancy warrants it and _occassionally_ to veto some of the weirder stuff.

They work together, he thinks. They fit. They’re prickly and, in places, sharply edged, but they’re getting so much better at spotting when Lovett needs to be held down, or when Tommy needs to be prodded, or when Ronan needs to plan.

Mentally, he pockets Ira’s book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the amazing comments on the last few chapters! i'm so sorry i've been rubbish at replying quickly. this week i'll be mostly trying to finish the next part before Saturday so may be late with comments, too, but i'll try to do better! you're all gems.
> 
> note: i have not read the book mentioned cover to cover, but have scanned. sorry to any for whom it might be an actually important book because i have not done it justice. we may as well call it deus ex ira (ira ex machina? idk) for the purposes of this fic.


	8. part iv: i finally met me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from _for me_ by dearlie (a great little ace-positive song)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's way too late to be posting this so please shout it you spot errors, but this is months late and finally done and if i don't post it now i'm going to fret over it for another month or never post at all.
> 
> thank you so so much to Jess for always being willing to chat about this dumbness, and also to kenopsia for helping with my writer's block whether you knew it or not.

Lovett expects to have to do a lot of nagging to get Ronan to come on his show on Friday, but turns out he’s a pushover when it comes to a quiet suggestion mumbled into his neck.

Lovett only realises he’s fucked himself over when he sees Ronan under the stage lights and how it makes his hair glow and his eyes turn silver. Lovett catches Tommy, in the croud, staring. He knows he won’t even be able to make fun of him for it given what he probably looks like, also unable to stop staring. Lovett just hopes how besotted he is doesn't translate to the audio, since this is the one show he knows his mom sometimes listens to. If she well-meaningly but awkwardly asks if he has a boyfriend, he really doesn't know what he'll say.

Ronan glows in a darkened room, only partly because he's so pale, so it's no surprise that it takes ten minutes for the audience to realise Ronan is the smartest guy in the room. Lovett falls into a back-and-forth with him that covers video games, American foreign policy, and the college administration. He only realises it's gone on too long when Travis steals a mic to say, “you've lost us all, Lovett,” laughing with an audience which is clearly just barely still humouring their nonsense.

Once the show’s over, Lovett brushes the back of his hand against Ronan’s in gratitude and in place of kissing him like he wants to, then says, “go take Tommy home while he can still hold himself back. I need to go catch Ira.”

“Are you sure?” Ronan asks, turning to meet Lovett's eyes. “We can wait, it's no problem.”

Lovett shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “It's your turn for a date with him.”

Ronan glances at Tommy, blushes a tiny bit, and then gives Lovett a quick back pat — he's so much better at platonic-in-public touches than Lovett is — before practically prowling over to Tommy. Tommy's eyes widen a fraction. Lovett watches and waves as they finish their drinks and leave.

Ira is ensconced in a booth with a guy Lovett doesn't recognise as well as Louis, Erin, Kara and Travis. As he heads over to them, Lovett tries to figure out which of them the unfamiliar guy is with. He's a pretty guy; dark skinned and wearing an unfortunate blue puffervest, pressed between Louis and Ira. He's probably Ira’s, he decides, — he's pretty enough to be — until Louis starts necking with him out of nowhere. Ira looks on with interest, though, so who knows. It wouldn't be the first time they've shared.

Travis spots Lovett first, waving and indicating a shot glass with Lovett’s proverbial name on it. Lovett takes it straight, making a face at the taste, before shoving into the booth next to Travis.

“Good show,” Travis tells him, toasting him with his own shot. “Please never invite your boyfriend on again, though; I thought you were going to maul him on stage.”

Lovett says, “fuck you,” fairly sure Travis is exaggerating and just a little bit worried he's actually going to have to lose tonight's audio.

Ira, gentle and good person that he is, snorts in laughter and says, “maybe not _maul_ him. Certainly seemed like you wanted to make out with his big, beautiful brain, though.”

Lovett flips Ira off, saying, “oh, fuck you, too,” and steals what he hopes is Ira’s shot in vengeance.

Ira holds his hands up, laughing.

Lovett fumbles for a better comeback and, in the time it takes him to think of something, Kara has changed the subject.

Half an hour or so later, they've run out of drinks.

“I'll get them,” Lovett tells them. “Come with me, Ira. Help me carry them.”

Kara raises her eyebrows and says, “just ask for a tray,” looking ready to refuse to let Ira past her until Ira puts a hand on her shoulder and says, “I wanna stretch my legs, anyway.”

He's good for a lot of things, but one of the things Lovett really appreciates Ira for is his ability to part a crowd. They reach the bar quickly, poaching spots to lean against it.

“Thanks for the book,” Lovett tells him. He picks up a straw and begins knotting it just as something to keep his hands busy. “You didn't have to. We appreciate it, but we're actually doing really well.”

Ira doesn't say anything for a moment, just studying the side of Lovett's face.

“Well, good,” he says. “You're welcome, and I'm glad you've found something that's working for you. Told you you'd be happy.” He nudges Lovett with his elbow, smiling, Lovett thinks.

“I am,” Lovett says.

There's a longer pause this time. Ira continues to focus on Lovett.

“Good,” he says again, doubt bleeding into his voice, or maybe Lovett's just paranoid. “Tell me if this is too personal,” Ira continues, “but what did you work out with them?”

Lovett breaks the straw. Not dramatically; he just twists it too much and it splits where it's crenellated. He lets it drop to the bar and flattens his hands on either side of it.

“That is a bit personal,” he says, sounding far more mature and on top of his shit than he has any right to sound.

Ira nods. “Sorry,” he says. “Forget I asked.”

Lovett shrugs, managing just then to catch the eye of a bartender so he's busy ordering drinks for a few moments, Ira a quiet presence next to him.

With hands full of drinks a few minutes later, Lovett touches Ira’s arm to stop him from doing his parting-of-the-waters act just yet.

“Ira,” he says. “Could you keep out of my relationship, please?”

Ira blinks at him; Lovett's stomach churns.

“I really am grateful for the book,” he continues. “But this is complicated enough without adding in… outside stuff.”

Ira's expression makes Lovett wish he'd run his plan for this conversation past another human before he began it. _Idiot,_ he thinks at himself with feeling.

“Uh… sure,” Ira says. His eyes dart between Lovetts’. “Sorry,” he adds. “I didn't mean to…”

As he trails off, Lovett says, “I know, and it's fine. Just. In future…”

Some dick who can't wait for a second to get to the bar shoves past Lovett, sending the drinks in his hands slopping over the sides and distracting Lovett long enough for him to not have to finish that sentence.

Instead, Ira says, “they do know about you, right?” and Lovett almost drops the drinks, no help from any other drunk idiots needed.

He scowles at Ira, putting every ounce of displeasure he can into the look. “What did I just ask you not to do?” he says. Ira does not look chastened. Lovett goes to make a gesture and remembers the drinks as he starts to move his hands, correcting himself hurriedly. It's really not fair how Ira's having no issues at all holding onto his allotment of drinks. An unattractive strain of desperation creeping into his voice, Lovett asks, “what would I even tell them?”

The look Ira levels him with is incredulous and sad. Pitying, in a way he hadn’t been the last time they talked about this.

“I don't know,” Ira tells him. “But I'm having trouble seeing a world where I manage to keep my nose out of your relationship if what you're telling me is that you haven't talked to them about how sex doesn't seem to be on the table for you.”

Lovett shakes his head, unsure really what he's denying. He just knows he feels beyond frustrated, and Ira might not be the cause but he is an easy target. Lovett doesn't want to lose a friend he knows is trying his best to help.

“It's on the table with them,” he says.

“Really?” Ira asks. “Because that's great, if so, but…”

Lovett glares up at him. “It has to be. They're too important.”

Ira straightens his back, looking down at Lovett with an unreadable expression as he says, “ _Fuck,_ Lovett—”

“Fuck this,” he tells Ira. “I'm going home.”

He does his best to march away, winding as he has to through the press of bodies to get back to the table. He thunks the drinks down, saying, “bye” shortly to the others.

He turns to leave and walks into a wall called Ira, who he obviously hadn't been able to slip away from.

Ira catches his shoulder, holding on gently. “Lovett—” he starts, cut off as Lovett wrenches his shoulder out from Ira's hold and spits, “I'm going _home_ , Ira.” He takes a pace away because it feels like he needs to, then makes himself stop, turn, and add, “thank you, really, for caring.” He shrugs. “But if I want to go home and fuck my boyfriends, that's my choice.”

Lovett leaves the bar, frustration and anger coiling in his stomach. Feeling, as he steps out into the cold air and hits the outside like a wall that says _you are alone_ , like the biggest dick in the universe. His stomach sinks to his feet and he replays Ira's calm, concerned words and sad expression over and over, through the whole walk home.

~~~

It's not a walk he does often. It takes forty minutes and it's so much more convenient to guilt Tommy into giving him a lift. He's just glad he doesn't get even briefly lost in the dark, tipsy and distracted as he is, on the way back.

The walk gives him plenty of time to recognise that he is an idiot. That he owes Ira an apology first thing in the morning.

_If I'd just planned better_ , Lovett rationalises. _I'd have realised he'd end up asking._

_Why didn't I have a bland, technically true statement ready?_ he asks himself. _‘Ira, we communicate and try to give each other what we need. Just like any other relationship.’_

_What am I doing?_ he wonders, bile rising in his throat as his feet just keep putting one in front of the other because at least _they_ work. _This is sick,_ he tells himself. _This is_ ** _stupid_** _and beneath you and you shouldn't have to lie to your friends about your relationship._

He's close — very close, in that moment — to dropping to the pavement to hold his head in his hands while he agonises about his own idiocy, and the only thing that stops him is the thought that he'd have to make the effort to get back to again, afterwards. Eventually, anyway. Better to just keep going.

_I'm_ ** _happy_** _,_ he thinks, putting as much emphasis on the thought as he can because it is true. He's so happy with them. He feels like a fraud and, yes, there are things he just sort of… gets through, but he'd freaked out at Ira over the idea of losing what he has with them, not over the touching of dicks that sometimes comes with them.

Their apartment building comes into view, finally, and Lovett's brain stops spinning out of control quite as much as it had been as he watches it come closer. His skin starts to feel uncomfortable, though — almost too tight, or itchy — in what he knows isn't a real feeling; it's just his brain playing tricks on him.

Still, he reaches their floor, opening the door as quietly as he can. He moves through the apartment quietly, unwilling to examine too closely why it feels necessary to do so as he slips his shoes off and pads towards the bedrooms.

Familiar sounds reach him as he gets to Tommy's door. Ronan's soft voice telling Tommy what to do, cut off by what must be Tommy kissing him. Tommy's groan. Lovett puts his hand against the door and tells himself, _open it. Open it, coward._

He doesn't. Instead, he finds himself thinking, _I'm tired._ And, once it’s a conscious thought, he can't do it.

He goes to his own room instead, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. He takes his clothes off, leaving just his boxers and socks on, and lies back on his bed. The ceiling offers him nothing but self-recrimination and what must be half-imagined sounds from Tommy's room, their shared wall doing some of the work and Lovett's memories filling in the rest.

Lovett's stomach churns. He presses his hands to his eyes as if doing so will help stave off the images he can't get out of his head. He bites his arm to give him something else to think about, wishing suddenly for the white noise he'd always conjured when his imagination got to touching, before Tommy and Ronan.

Maybe five, maybe fifteen minutes later, he boots up his console, slips in his headphones, and distracts himself until dawn breaks through the blinds he'd forgotten to close the night before.

All he hears when he pulls his headphones out is the silence of a home where he's the only one awake. He could get up and go to Tommy’s door. He could sneak into the room and into the bed, probably not even waking them. They’d be cuddly and sleepy, and maybe they’d offer something else but it wouldn’t be weird for him to say no, and he’d be there for the part he likes.

There’s no rational reason why he can’t get up and do that. He just feels weighed down and sick to his stomach and like a _fraud_ , and so, instead of joining them, he punishes himself by lying down to sleep in his own bed.

It’s too big and too cold.

~~~

Lovett's a heavy sleeper. He's first aware of Tommy getting into bed behind him the next morning in his dream. Tommy comes up behind him where Lovett's dancing up on stage, badly, in front of his staring high school class. Tommy kisses his hair, winding his arms around his middle as dream Lovett falls back into his arms and awake.

Ronan sets a glass of water next to Lovett's bed before getting in on Lovett's other side. He rolls close, nudging his nose into the dip in Lovett's throat.

“Hey,” Lovett murmurs. He pulls Ronan closer, slipping his hand up the back of Ronan's shirt to feel his body heat all along his forearm, palm and wrist.

They say “hey” back, then all settle together.

Lovett doses, dreamless, until Tommy squeezes him tighter and mumbles, right into his ear, “why didn't you come to bed last night?”

Lovett blinks his eyes open.

Ronan's eyes are on him and are far more awake than Lovett will be for another two hours.

“Uh…” Lovett rolls onto his back, accepting that Tommy's hand ends up resting on his chest. “I just… didn't?” He blinks the bleariness out of his eyes, each blink taking longer to complete. “I was a bit drunk and tired. I wouldn't’ve been good company.”

Tommy nods, dropping a kiss on Lovett's shoulder. “Okay,” he says. “That's fair.”

“Just…” Ronan interrupts, then stops himself. “You don't have to be good company with us. You know?”

Lovett looks at Ronan, studying his serious expression for a moment. Lovett smiles a little, saying, “sure.” He shrugs as much as he can while horizontal.

Ronan seems unconvinced. “We like when you rant at us,” he says, nudging Lovett's cheek with his nose before backing off to re-engage eye contact.

“You-” Lovett starts, but cuts himself off because his voice sounds too strangled.He coughs, then starts again. “You were busy,” he says. “I wasn't in the, y’know. Mood.”

Unblinking, Ronan watches him for a time-lapse of a minute. His eyes have captured Lovett in a hypnotic blue-gray prison as Lovett does his best not to fret. He holds himself still and tells himself, _this is just like last week when Tommy was drunk and tired and headachy and ‘not in the mood.’ This is fine._

“Do…” Tommy starts, sounding not so much unsure as contemplative, though a little of both. “Do we want a rule about that?”

Ronan keeps watching Lovett as he says, “hmm?” in a vague questioning tone, encouraging Tommy to elaborate.

“So…” Tommy starts again, pausing for a moment and absently moving his thumb back and forth in place across Lovett’s chest, slowly, without intent. “Say one of us isn’t into it and the other two are, but maybe… maybe Person A doesn’t want to be al— on their own?”

Lovett closes his eyes, freezing, and trying not to with a desperation which is lodged in his throat and pricking at the corners of his eyes. Because it would be _so easy_ to be selfish; to say, _yes, please, let’s figure_ ** _that_** _out;_ to let Ronan and Tommy fall blindly into a pattern that works for him for as long as they don’t realise why they’re unsatisfied.

So it feels self _less_ for exactly the length of time it takes him to say it when Lovett opens his eyes, looks at Tommy, and tells him, “No. I did. I wanted to be alone.”

Tommy’s eyes widen a little — shining and bright in shock and hurt. His fingers press down slightly, involuntarily, on Lovett’s chest. He shares a look with Ronan over Lovett’s head and exhales, carefully, before saying, “okay. I didn’t mean to… assume. Sorry.”

“No, I know—” Lovett gets out before Tommy, frowning now, cuts him off to ask, “did… do you want us to go now?”

“ _No_ ,” Lovett says. He touches Tommy’s mouth uncertainly, sort of saying _shut up_ but not commiting to it. “I just…”

He doesn’t know where to go from there. Tommy looks as uncertain as Lovett has seen him since their first pizza date, and Ronan is a line of tension behind him. Now Lovett’s shut both of them up and they’re waiting, and he has no idea what to say.

He opens his mouth with no idea what is going to fall out.

“I’m not as— You’re more into some of it than I am,” he ends up saying. “I think. I’m sorry.”

Lovett can’t look directly at Tommy, who he’s facing. He looks over his shoulder instead, and only sees Tommy’s face fall in his periphery, which makes it no less impossible to pretend his expression isn’t completely his fault.

Ronan put’s his hand over Tommy’s on top of Lovett’s chest. Lovett just hopes they can’t feel his heart trying to pound its way out of there.

“What do you mean?” Ronan asks, his voice very soft. He almost sounds far away.

Lovett shrugs. He searches for the words to cut through the tension he’s created in an effort to be good enough for them. He doesn’t have those words he needs. Instead, he ends up saying, “I mean that you should, uh, _date_. Without me. As much as you want.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, sounding wounded.

“I don’t want out,” Lovett clarifies. Ronan laces his fingers through Tommy’s, squeezing his hand. Lovett takes a deep breath and makes himself add, “not unless you want me to be.”

Ronan, as steely as Lovett has heard him, says, “Lovett.” He nudges his knee against Lovett’s thigh, then says, “This isn’t coming from us. We want you just as much as we did ten minutes ago.”

Lovett lets that wreck him internally and does his best to keep himself as together as possible, externally. “Me too,” he says weakly.

Tommy makes an untranslatable, raw sound and Ronan squeezes his hand and shakes his head subtly enough that Lovett almost misses it. He pretends he did.

Tommy keeps his hand in Ronan’s on Lovett’s chest but does sit up, giving them his back. He crosses his legs underneath him and scrubs at his hair with his free hand. Then he asks, “have we assumed stuff about how you… how you feel about this?”

If there were a way for Lovett to twist his way out of this whole conversation and back into the sweet, lovely, sleepy morning cuddles they were having, he would do it. Instead, he watches the ceiling and says, “No.” He wets his lips and adds, “I just, um. I need space, sometimes. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t say, “I did warn you I’d be bad at this,” even though it’s on the tip of his tongue, because he can read a room and he knows that’d be even more a disaster than this already is. The tense lines of Tommy’s back tell him that Tommy’s assuming the wrong things. Tommy must think Lovett’s just more casual about this than they are, after all, even after all he’s done to prove otherwise, and as Lovett starts spinning down that route in his brain he has to remind himself that, to them, he’s done nothing special. Nothing he’s done for their relationship has been in any way hard for any normally functioning person.

“Tommy…” Lovett says. He doesn’t know what comes next. It’s just dragged out of him.

Ronan says, “it’s okay.” He tentatively hovers his lips over Lovett’s shoulder and asks, “is this still…?” and kisses Lovett’s skin at his nod. “Tommy,” Ronan says. “It’s okay. Renegotiation is always on the table.”

Tommy nods jerkily. He twists towards them and offers a wry almost-smile. “Of course,” he says. “Yeah. Whatever you need, Lovett.”

_Don’t do that_ , part of Lovett wants to tell him, then turn to Ronan and tell him the same. _Don’t be kind to me_. 

~~~

They circle around the issue of the half-admitted things they’d talked about over the next week. What they agree on shouldn’t have changed that much; it should just be that if Lovett wants _space_ , he gets to walk away without question, and when he’s ready to come back, he does.

In practice, Tommy is hesitant to touch him. To the point that every touch is a question and a stare that makes Lovett feel seen, deeply, and vulnerable.

He does not like feeling vulnerable.

He becomes a shitty person to be around. His jokes turn sharp-edged and he keeps away from them more than he needs to and he wallows in guilt, with or without them there for him to see what he’s ruined. And all that just makes Tommy touch him more and more tentatively.

And Ronan watches them, blank faced, quietly miserable.

~~~

Before Lovett heads home for the weekend, Ronan makes them write down their rules, point by point, step by step, term by term. Until Lovett is bursting to snap and ask, “is this a relationship or a business arrangement?”

He bites his tongue. Ronan and Tommy deserve to feel less like they’re pulling apart at the seams, so. Lovett figures he can listen to and then imagine them doing all the things allowed by their rules while he’s apart from them.

“You haven’t asked us to keep _anything_ for us,” Tommy snaps at Lovett when Lovett has okayed every permutation of sex the three of them can come up with. Tommy is taut like a guitar string. Ronan, next to him, nudges Tommy in rebuke, staying silent, though all Lovett can focus on is the furrow between Ronan’s eyebrows.

Lovett wants to evaporate from the room rather than continue this conversation. There’s a reason he’s booked a last-minute trip home in the middle of the semester.

He doesn’t apologise, but he does say, “just don’t get pizza without me,” and he watches how Tommy opens his mouth to snap at him again and is then startled out of doing so when Ronan writes down, as seriously as he’s written everything else, _no pizza without Lovett_. He watches Tommy frown, then remember, then flush.

“Oh,” Tommy says. “Yeah, okay.” He breathes out what seems like half a week’s worth of tension, relaxing a little into Ronan’s side.

If that were the end of it, Lovett would have felt a little more stable and a little less like he were running away from his problems, but then Ronan follows this up by asking, “are you wanting to date or sleep with anyone else?”

They’d talked this through right at the beginning. Right when they’d first started, they’d agreed out of hand that it was the three of them and that was it. They’d commited to each other so quickly and with so little talk around it that it honestly feels like it stops Lovett’s heart to hear Ronan bring it up now.

The way Tommy’s now looking at the ground, shoulders hunched, face blank, is a knife to Lovett’s gut. Tommy’s not surprised by the question, is the thing, which means it’s not just a product of Ronan’s head and insecurities.

_Oh,_ he thinks. _I have fucked this up_.

“No,” he tells them, sounding faint to his own ears. “I don’t want anyone else. At all. No.” He looks between them, watching as they do nothing. Desperate, he adds, “write that down.”

Ronan doesn’t move.

“Ronan,” Lovett says. “Write it down. Please.”

He shifts towards them. Ronan doesn’t look at him, and neither does Tommy, but Lovett can actually only deal with them not being able to look at him one person at a time. So he touches Ronan’s jaw and gently turns him towards him.

“Just you,” he tells Ronan, then kisses him. He keeps it chaste. Ronan doesn’t respond. Lovett pulls away and leans over to Tommy, tilting his face up to him and kissing him, too, saying, “and you,” as he pulls away. “That’s it, for as long as you’ll have me,” he tells them, before kissing Ronan again.

This time Ronan responds. Then, as Tommy and Lovett take their turn for tentatively grateful, reciprocal kisses, Ronan writes down: _no fourth parties._  

~~~

For Lovett, being home always means waiting for the next time he can go to his room, shut the door on his well-meaning parents, and pull his bed covers over his head until they really start worrying about him.

That’s probably not a fair characterisation of their relationship. He loves them. He does. He likes them a lot, too. It’s just he’s worked himself up so much by the time he gets home on Friday night, packed full of guilt and frustration with himself for running home when it gets tough, that he struggles not to snap whenever his mom asks him about college or his dad tries to pull him into a deconstruction of wider family gossip.

By Saturday night, he’s snapped and apologised so many times that he supposes he has it coming to him when Mom gestures for Dad to wash the dishes after dinner, takes Lovett’s hand, and pulls him through to sit with her on the couch.

She levels him with a kind look that still somehow pins him where he is, the way it did when he was three and eight and fourteen.

“What’s going on with you, Jon?” she asks.

And to make it worse, she lets him sit in silence as he mentally tries out four or five unfinished and deflecting jokes. He hates when she waits him out. Maybe coming home to people who do actually know him, inside and out, even if he sometimes pretends they’re from different planets, wasn’t his best idea.

“I’m okay,” he says eventually, after a long sigh that almost feels torn out of his lungs. He lets his head tip back against the couch. Mom makes a disbelieving sound, folding one leg up under her so she’s nestled into the couch, still waiting him out. “I am,” he insists, looking at her.

She raises an eyebrow, so that was a mistake.

“There’s—” Lovett attempts, his mouth suddenly dry. “I have a boyfriend,” he makes himself say. Then he digs his fingernails into the meat of his other arm, above the elbow, and makes himself add, “Well. I have two.”

Mom blinks at him.

“Oh,” she says. It’s not a lot to go on, but Lovett has enough context to guess it’s not a good ‘oh.’ After a moment where they watch each other, absorbed in their own thoughts as much as in anticipating what they’ll each do next, she says, “I thought maybe you’d failed an assignment.”

Lovett snorts. “No,” he says. “I’ve not been too busy taking down the norms of monogomy to meet my deadlines.”

Mom laughs, sounding a little surprised at herself as she does so. Lovett’s always loved making her laugh. She closes her eyes and laughs open mouthed, sometimes not even making a sound, she’s so wrapped up in it. Just now, he’s reminded of a conversation they’d had years ago in this exact spot where she laughed at a tension breaking joke he’d made, before hugging him, telling him she loved him, and saying, “I just want you to get all the things that’ll make you happy. Whatever that is.” It’s not unlike coming out again, this talk.

“So…” she starts to say, concentrating on making the words work for and not against her, if her expression is anything to go on. “Did they… find out? Is that why you’re up here moping and snapping and acting like you’re fifteen again?”

Lovett huffs. “I resent that characterisation,” he says. It puts a little twinkle back in her eyes; he doesn’t mind letting his mom laugh at him, either. She gets that right, having put up with him for twenty-one years, and having done so with admirable patience. “But no, they didn’t need to find out. We’re all, um. Dating each other.”

“Oh,” she says again. “Okay…” she adds, drawing it out in a way that says it’s probably not, really, but at least she’s trying for him.

“They were dating first,” he tells the ceiling, which is not having to do quite as much work as Mom is to not look or sound judgemental. “Then I, uh, joined them. I really like them.”

“Oh,” Mom says. Again. After a short, rallying pause, she adds, “Good.”

Lovett turns his head to look at her, still laying back against the back of the couch. He hopes it’ll lend him a nonchalant air as he says, “is it?”

Mom makes a complicated sound which isn’t a word and then breaks with tradition to take hold of Lovett’s hand, wrapping it up in both of hers.

“In theory,” she tells him. “Yes. With a bit of adjustment, of course. But the way you’re acting has me wondering if I should be the one asking you that question, Jonathan.”

Lovett rolls his eyes at the sound of his full name, then shrugs and says, “maybe.”

“Okay,” Mom says. “Is it good?”

Lovett pulls a face, biting the inside of his bottom lip. “Yes. Or… it was.” He meets her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m built for it.”

He’s getting very good at double-speak.

Mom frowns, still holding onto his hand, and says, “well, you’ve never liked being left out. I’d think that could be a problem, if there’s three of you.”

_It’s supernatural_ , Lovett thinks. _How oblivious of key facts a mom can be, and still get so much right._

She squeezes his hand and adds, “but if they’re worth it, they should help you make it work for you.”

Lovett’s throat gets tight. He looks at her; nods, squeezes her hands back, then opens his mouth to say _thank you_ or a joke or something miserable his brain hasn’t fully cooked up yet.

His phone beeps in his pocket, interrupting him.

Ronan, he sees when he checks it, has texted him: **What are your plans when you get back to campus, Love?**

(Lovett hates that Ronan capitalises it (“Love”) like it’s a nickname, not an endearment. It’s unforgivable. He’ll figure out a way to make Ronan stop as soon as Ronan admits it offends _his_ internal grammar fiend, too.)

“That must be one of them,” Mom says sagely. Lovett glares at her, knowing his face is doing something too dumb and sappy for it to be in any way convincing.

He texts: _i get in at 7ish. can we (3) go get pizza? or order in? i’m not even really invested in the pizza, honestly_

Mom nudges him. “Now I’ve seen that look on your face, you have to tell me about them,” she says.

Lovett rolls his eyes, an irrepressable grin spreading over his face.

**Tommy says you’re trying to make him get fat. Since that’s not a no, yes, we’d love to.**

**We miss you.**

Lovett reads that on repeat for several seconds, absently touching the screen with his thumb as if to pin the message there where it can’t escape.

_I miss you both too_ , he types and sends in reply.

Putting the phone down, Lovett turns to his mom and says, “well, you know Tommy.”

“Oh!” Mom says. This time it’s a good ‘oh.’

~~~

Lovett drops his bags dramatically at the door and says, “honeys, I’m home,” quietly to himself.

“Hey!” Favs calls from the couch where he’s working on his laptop with Em sitting next to him. “They’re in Tommy’s room. How was your weekend?”

Emily gets up and helps him with his stuff, giving him a one-armed hug as Lovett says, “yeah, fine. Nothing fall apart here?”

“We survived,” Em tells him.

They put his stuff in his room and Em not very subtly at all pushes Lovett towards Tommy’s door, saying, “have fun!”

Lovett stands in front of the door for a second, hesitating, not hearing anything. He pushes it open.

They’re lying together on the bed, under the covers, asleep. Ronan is spooned up behind Tommy, whose long, pale legs have been freed from the sheets. The room smells faintly, and Lovett goes to the window and opens it, first, before taking off his socks and jeans.

They fit on the bed just fine without him, but he pushes that thought away and climbs in next to Tommy.

“Lo?” Tommy asks, eyes just barely opening.

Lovett boops their noses together. “Yep,” he says.

“Hi,” Tommy says, one arm winding round Lovett’s waist.

“Welcome back,” Ronan says too, sounding much more awake. He leans up on his elbow over Tommy to kiss Lovett’s forehead. “Missed you,” he says.

“You’re both too adorable,” Lovett tells them. His voice comes out much too gentle and fond, just a little bit choked up, but it earns him a squeeze around the waist from Tommy and a huffed laugh from Ronan.

For a while, all they do is murmur back and forth about their weekends and some of the stuff they’d not managed to catch up on during the week, in among Lovett causing drama. Eventually Lovett demands pizza, goes to find out what Em and Favs want, and then calls in the order himself because only Ronan and him act like making a call isn't an event that needs to be worked up to.

Tommy pulls some sweatpants on and Lovett loans Ronan a clean tshirt so they can join Favs and Em in the lounge. They watch a film, eat some pizza, and snark at the dialogue. Em and Favs take the armchair while Lovett sprawls out on the couch across his boys, Ronan’s non-greasy hand in his hair and Tommy’s wrists balanced on Lovett’s knees.

They’re watching _Titanic_ because it was Favs’ turn to pick, and that meant it was Favs’ turn to try to impress Emily and Emily’s turn to let him get on with it and try.

Lovett likes _Titanic_. “It’s a cool exporation of a woman who goes from completely dependent on her family and fiancé to an independent woman in America. It’s cool. It's the American Dream,” he insists to Tommy.

“Your opinions are half a decade too late,” Ronan tells him. He takes and kisses Lovett's palm.

“There’s just so much running around,” Tommy says, rolling his eyes when Lovett insists, “it’s _symbolic_.”

By the time the whole film is done, they’ve worked their way through all the pizza, Favs has fallen asleep, and Lovett’s drunk enough Diet Cokes that he’s jittery. Em shakes Favs awake and takes him to bed, ruffling Tommy’s hair on the way past and saying a quiet, “g’night.”

Tommy stretches, showing a patch of his skin where his sweater rides up. “Bed?” he asks through a yawn. Ronan nods, gently pushing Lovett up off his lap by the shoulders so he can stand and offer them both a hand. He herds them to bed, taking a glass of water only to pass it to Lovett — “protect your teeth from acid erosion,” he tells him — and pausing at Lovett’s door.

“Could we sleep in your room?” he asks, sort of tentatively, though he meets Lovett’s eyes.

“Uh, sure,” Lovett says. He’s a little put off by being asked, honestly; normally they just pile into whichever room the first of them gravitates to. Still, he’d made his bed before he left and had actually picked up after himself last week, so it feels comfortable to go in there together tonight, even with the stalling at the door.

Tommy looks ready to fall asleep standing, so Lovett sends him to brush his teeth first. By the time he and Ronan are back from doing the same, Tommy’s on the wall side of the bed, practically conked out already.

Lovett takes the middle; Ronan curls around him on the outside. He turns his head and finds himself meeting Ronan’s eyes, just visible in the dark of the room as Ronan turns the lamp off. He can feel his breath on his skin. Lovett realises he hasn’t kissed either one of them in far too long.

He touches Ronan’s cheek, thumbing the corner of his mouth. “Can I?” he asks. At Ronan’s nod, Lovett shifts closer, legs tangling, and they kiss.

“You taste like toothpaste,” Lovett whispers against Ronan’s mouth. Ronan laughs quietly in return, and Lovett feels a faint brush of Tommy’s lips against the back of his neck.

“Night. Missed you,” Tommy says, sounding like he’s barely aware of what he’s saying. It seems like Tommy’s arm wrapped loosely around Lovett’s waist will be the extent of his contribution to the rest of the night, in fact, as he’s asleep when Lovett looks over his shoulder at him.

Lovett turns back to Ronan. He kisses Ronan quickly, then says, “sorry for going home.”

Ronan _hmms_ , kissing him in return. “We get it,” he says. “You seem settled, too, so. It’s good.”

Lovett nods. It feels true, when Roman says it like that. He is settled. Maybe telling his mom had been a bigger deal to him than he'd realised, or maybe he'd accidentally been more right than he'd thought and had needed just that little bit of space to remember what he had.

They trade kisses and gentle touches above each others’ waists for what might have just been minutes, but probably is much longer, until Lovett’s body feels like taffy and he never wants to move. He does a little, though, just to get a little closer to Ronan, and briefly feels Ronan’s cock, half-hard against his thigh.

Ronan pulls back, unhurried, but Lovett makes a questioning noise and trails a hand towards it.

His wrist is captured in Ronan’s hand and put on Ronan’s hip instead.

Ronan shakes his head, kissing Lovett more soundly for a split second before pulling away to explain, “it’s okay; Tommy’s asleep. I don’t want to wake him up.” He’s whispering and gently tracing spiral patterns into Lovett’s wrist where he’s keeping it still on his hip. “Is that okay?” he asks. “He hasn’t been sleeping well.”

A flash of guilt runs through Lovett that would have made him pull away, anyway, and so he nods, hurriedly. He makes himself smile. “Course,” he murmurs.

Ronan’s look searches him for lies, even in the dark, so it’s a many layered relief when he brushes a soft kiss against Lovett’s nose, then foreheard, cheek, lips, chin and eyelids until Lovett is suppressing laughter and pushing him back.

They look at each other in the dark for a while, Lovett’s blinks taking longer and longer to complete.

“Hey,” he whispers after a while. Ronan acknowledges him with a sleepy “hmm?” so Lovett says, “I told Mom.”

Ronan shifts closer again, so that their noses brush. “About us?” he asks.

Lovett nods. “She took it really well,” he tells him, feeling conspiratorial with the darkness and the whispering and the things he never thought he’d get to say out loud. “Remind me to tell Tommy how pleased she was when she found out I’m dating him.”

Ronan laughs without sound. “Your dad?” he asks after a moment.

Lovett shakes his head. “One thing at a time,” he says.

Ronan shifts closer, saying, “you told your mom,” kissing Lovett and pulling him in to a hug. “I’m really… proud of you.” What he sounds like he is is overwraught. Lovett’s glad the lights are off, because even the vague picture of Ronan’s face he can see is devastating enough.

“Thanks. Me too,” Lovett admits, sinking happily into the feeling of having got a part of this _right,_ finally.

~~~

Telling Tommy the next morning, Lovett watches his face transform from tired grumpiness into an open, happy expression; one which is a bit painful to look at.

“I can't believe you told her,” Tommy says, something complex and unnamed written all over his face.

Lovett shrugs, a stupid smile irrepressible on his face as he looks up at Tommy.

Ronan kisses the back of Lovett’s neck on his way to get coffee. He puts both hands on Tommy's hips and gently moves him out of the way to get at it while Tommy grins at Lovett and lets himself be moved. They're cute. Lovett fills to the brim with delight over how cute they are.

Tommy seems unable to say anything for several minutes. He sips the coffee in his hands and shares a long, loaded look with Ronan, before putting the coffee down and turning to Lovett with a hand outstretched.

“C’mere,” he says. When Lovett does, he cups Lovett's cheek in his hand. Lovett wraps his arms around Tommy's skinny hips and leans in to kiss him.

Ronan _hums_ in appreciation, though whether for his coffee or for the kiss Lovett doesn't quite have the wits to figure out just then.

Pulling away, Tommy says, “I thought—” and cuts himself off, smiling too hard to go on. He turns it on Ronan as well as Lovett, but it's no less intense.

Dropping his head to Tommy's shoulder while keeping his eyes on Lovett, Ronan says, “I thought so, too.” He's smiling, but it's more muted with relief than it is shining with Tommy's overwhelming delight.

For Lovett, looking at them is like looking at the sun in that it's making his eyes sting, and in that he kind of wants to keep doing it, anyway. He says, “you're dumb.” He sniffs and blinks and hip-bumps Ronan. “We’re all dumb.”

“Monumentally,” Ronan agrees, kissing Lovett's temple and then leaning up to do the same to Tommy's. “But that's okay,” he adds.

And, right now at least, Lovett can honestly agree.

~~~

Tommy’s just pressed play on a song mid-way through their Monday evening show when Ira appears in the window outside the studio. He catches Lovett’s eye as he comes into view and holds it as he steps out of sight again.

“Shit,” Lovett says, scrambling to get his headphones off and follow him at the same time.

“What’re you—” Favs starts to say. The rest is lost behind the studio’s soundproof door.

“Ira!” Lovett says, voice laced with desperation.

Ira is opening the door to Studio B. Lovett watches him hesitate, as if contemplating stepping through and letting it shut; pretending he’d not been able to hear Lovett at all.

Ira straightens his shoulders instead. He looks at Lovett over one of them and raises an eyebrow. “What’s up, Jon?” he asks. His voice is soft and guarded.

Lovett walks around the weird mix of desks, chairs and other disguarded furniture that populates the space they use as the station’s office, getting close enough to Ira that he can talk just above a whisper when he says, “I owe you an apology.”

Ira turns towards him, sighing, folding his arms. Lovett isn’t sure what to do with his. He pushes his hands into his pockets and tries not to let his body language get either too defensive or too nonchalant.

“You don’t,” Ira tells him. “I’d like an explanation, though, if you really expect me to keep out of it.”

Lovett looks away involuntarily. He leans back against a desk behind him and studies the peeling stickers on the door to Studio B.

“Aren’t you mid-show?” Ira asks after a few moments. He offers Lovett an over-generous smile. “You should get back to it before Tommy and Favreau replace you.”

Lovett makes himself laugh obligingly. He shakes his head, but doesn’t offer Ira an explanation, busy as he is trying to come up with one for the first thing that’s so thick between them he could cut it.

“Ira,” Lovett says, slowly. “I don’t have one for you. I’m making it up as I go.”

Ira sighs. It’s a weary, heavy sound; a little melancholy and amused at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” Lovett tells the middle of Ira’s chest.

Ira’s arm pulls him in at his shoulders for a quick, squeezing hug, and a second later, when it’s over, Lovett’s left with the memory of comfort.

He likes it that way. Ira knows not to hold on past his welcome; his hold had just been enough to crack open the anxiety that Ira would hate him for this that’s been living in Lovett’s chest for ten days, and not a second longer.

“You shouldn’t have to make it up as you go,” Ira tells him.

Lovett nods. “Sure,” he says. “Well, do you know anyone else like this?” he asks, unable to say _like me_ for reasons he’s not sure he could put into words or even wants to. He looks Ira in the eyes and gets to see a guarded kind of sadness that makes Lovett feel tiny. “I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying harder not to fuck this up than anything I’ve ever done.”

“I know,” Ira says. “I can tell.” He pauses, either thinking or hesitating, and, really, is there a difference? “And no,” he says a moment later. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Lovett nods. “It’s fine,” he says. He shoves his hands back in his pockets and takes a step back. “So, are we okay?”

Ira offers him a lopsided smile. “Of Course,” he says. His smile fades away as quickly as it had been offered. “But you have to talk to them.”

Pulling a face, Lovett says, “sure, I know,” while thinking, _disasterous idea_.

Ira sees right through him. He takes a moment to just look at Lovett, then says, slowly, as if hoping it’ll help Lovett catch it all or cushion him from the words, “you’re lying to them.”

Lovett looks away. He looks at his feet and tenses his shoulders and finally says, “yeah, I know.” He doesn’t say _and I know they’re going to hate me_ because he knows it’s implied in everything he and Ira have both been saying.

Instead, he gives Ira a quick, unconvincing smile and walks back to Studio A.

“Have a good show,” Ira tells him.

Lovett nods, says, “thanks, Ira,” and pushes open the door.

~~~

He doesn’t tell them on Monday night.

They aren’t supposed to be hanging out at all. Ronan was supposed to have a thing with friends from the paper, Lovett was supposed to have game night, and Tommy and Favs were supposed to be working in the library on an assignment together.

Plans change when Lovett eats a burritto from his second favourite burritto place and then throws up three times in an hour, though.

Tommy cancels his plans with Favs, first, and Lovett doesn’t even feel that bad because as if Tommy really wanted to go to the library that badly. He makes Lovett hot water with honey, helps him get changed, gets into bed with him and watches with concern as Lovett sips his drink and grumbles that flat coke would be better even though that’s a lie and nothing could feel better than being the centre of Tommy’s fretting attention.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lovett tells Tommy in one brief moment when he can’t smother his guilt.

Tommy nods, taking Lovett’s hand even though it’s as clammy and disgusting as the rest of him. “That’s true,” he says.

A bit later, in the bathroom where he’d just managed to make it before throwing up again, Lovett tells him, “this can’t be how you’d choose to spend your time.” He kind of mumbles it, though, so when Tommy just rubs his back and makes a vague noise of disagreement Lovett thinks he must have only sort of got the gist.

“Don’t tell Ronan,” Lovett tells him, seeing the phone in Tommy’s hand when they’re back in bed and Lovett is sipping from a mug of warm flat soda Em had brought round for him.

Tommy pulls a vaguely apologetic face. “Too late, sorry,” he says. “He’s on his way.”

“ _Why?_ ” Lovett asks, rhetorically. “That’s so dumb. He has that… thing.”

Tommy takes the mug away and puts it on Lovett’s sidetable, managing to persuade Lovett to lie down without saying anything out loud. Lovett is feeling very open to suggestion with how shitty he's feeling.

“He didn’t want to go anyway,” Tommy tells him, lying down beside him. He nudges Lovett’s nose with his own because he’s obviously realised it’s Lovett’s proverbial achilles heel, the effect magnified now while he’s feeling shaky and vulnerable. “Let him be here for you,” Tommy says. “That’s all he wants.”

Lovett can’t really argue with that. Instead he whispers, since Tommy’s so close now, “my breath must smell really bad; I don’t know how you can stand to be this close.”

Tommy whispers back, “it really does.” Then, “I must really like you.”

“Ew,” Lovett tells him, though he can’t keep from blushing, weak for an earnest Tommy as he always has been. “Are you trying to make me throw up again?”

Tommy’s eyes crinkle. “Yep,” he says. “That’s my plan. I’m getting off on this.”

“That’s fucked up,” Lovett tells him, seriously, searching for Tommy’s hand under the covers. He finds it and holds on.

“Close your eyes,” Tommy suggests, voice soft and sweet.

It’s as much as Lovett can do to obey.

~~~

He wakes up again a couple of times. First, when Ronan gets into bed. He smells faintly of whatever food he'd had and it’s not his fault Lovett has to immediately get up to throw up again as he smells it. Second, an hour or so later to not throw up, just feel nauseous for twenty clammy, horrible minutes. Third, starving, shaky, and at five in the morning.

Tommy and Ronan bracket him, sleeping soundly. Lovett pulls the covers over his head and wriggles his way down to the bottom of the bed underneath them, sliding off the bed quietly to disturb them as little as possible.

They have basically no food in the kitchen. Lovett perseveres and steals some old pizza, scraping off the topping and reheating the base. It's like eating toast, he reasons, knowing his mom would have a fit if she could see him.

He eats it slowly, watching the street outside, trying to decide if his stomach’s rumbles are really from hunger or if they're tricking him into giving it something to violently reject. The owner of the dog they're all courting takes her out for an early morning walk as he watches, and he thinks _poor baby_ in her direction. The sun isn't even up. It's way too early for people and their dependents to have to be outside.

Tommy has star-fished into the space Lovett used to take up when he heads back to their room, a warm mug of honey water in one hand and a pack of crackers in the other. He puts them both on the sidetable next to Tommy before putting a hand on his hip.

“Shove over,” he tells him in a whisper.

Tommy grumbles in his sleep but lets himself be shoved, and Lovett's settling into the warmth left by Tommy's body when Tommy shifts onto his elbows and blinks down at Lovett.

“Hey,” he whispers. He looks at Lovett, sleep clouding his eyes still, and looks around. A crease appears on his perfect forehead. “You okay?” he mumbles. He puts a hand on Lovett's belly as if to check.

Lovett tries not to twitch away. He really doesn't know why hands on his stomach turn him into a skittish animal. He mustn't do a particularly good job, though, because Tommy's eyes lose a little of their sleepiness and he moves his hand up to Lovett's sternum, murmuring, “sorry.”

Lovett smiles, willing it not to tremble because really, how _dare_ Tommy not even mind a little that Lovett's a freak and how dare he _apologise_.

“I'm better, I think,” Lovett tells him. “Hungry, so. That must be good.”

Tommy smiles down at him, leaning in to kiss Lovett's chin. Weird, but cute. Lovett feels his cheeks pink up and thanks the dark for its camouflage.

“I think it was your nurse,” Tommy whispers, before lying down beside him and closing his eyes again, taking Lovett's hand and squeezing as if to say _sleep again now_.

Lovett probably could have said something to deflect from Tommy being a sop, could have said really anything to make Tommy laugh and avoid thinking about how this feels, but he doesn't.

He lies back, looks at the ceiling, and thinks, _I love you_ to Tommy and _I love you_ to Ronan and, because until he decides on it he finds his brain just won't stop and let him sleep, _I should really find a way to stop lying to you before I completely break all of our hearts_.

~~~

Ronan is sitting up in bed with his laptop on his knee, sipping his morning coffee, when Lovett wakes up again some time later. Tommy must have already gone — he has a horrible 8am class on Tuesdays while Ronan and Lovett have half days — and Lovett has managed to sleep on both of his arms, but at least he only feels _vaguely_ nauseous and shaky now.

He flips onto his back, humming in thanks when Ronan gently twists his fingers through Lovett's curls in _good morning_.

“Sorry you came back last night,” Lovett tells him. He gets a gentle tug on his hair for his trouble.

“Shush,” Ronan tells him. “I'm not. I _am_ sorry you felt shitty, though.”

Lovett briefly considers arguing over how Ronan dropped everything to come help him when really Tommy had it covered. He stops himself, realising how much he would never want to hear that if their positions were reversed.

“Thank you, then,” Lovett tells him. “It was…” He doesn't know quite how to finish that for a moment. It wasn't _nice_ , exactly, and it _was_ dumb but Lovett doesn't want to tell Ronan that, and eventually Lovett just thinks about how Ronan always makes him feel and makes himself say, “you make me feel safe.”

Ronan's steady one-handed typing stops. Lovett looks at Ronan and immediately wishes he hadn't. Ronan's face is closed off, shuttered, the way it usually only gets now if Lovett's said something that's hurt him. It sends Lovett into a kind of pre-panic, trying to figure out how something that had been meant as honest and nice could have hurt Ronan.

There's only one explanation that he can come up with. It makes his heart hurt to think it, but Ronan's not looking any more ready to speak or open up than when Lovett first spoke, so Lovett ends up saying, “if that's… that's probably a shitty thing to say.” He forces a laugh. Ronan looks away from his laptop screen to consider Lovett, finally, which should feel better, but doesn't. “I know I've been all over the place and it's really not fair to say that you make me feel safe when I've done nothing but make you feel like you've had to be…” He pauses, looking away. “On edge, or unsure, around me.”

Ronan makes a noise. It's hurt; Lovett can tell that much.

“It's fine,” Lovett says, and could kick himself for doing so. “I mean… I'm sorry. I'm going to do better for you from now on.”

“ _Lovett_ ,” Ronan says. Lovett has heard his name said in that tone of voice plenty of times in his life. It's a _stop talking_ tone. He ignores it nine times out of ten, treating it like a challenge.

This time, he doesn't ignore it.

Ronan shuts his laptop. He leans over the side of the bed to drop it on the floor, then turns towards Lovett and lies down on his side to face him. Putting a hand on Lovett's hip, he gently pulls Lovett around to mirror him.

He's still guarded. Lovett still can't tell what he's thinking. When Tommy's around, he can almost always tell what Ronan's thinking because when Tommy's around, Ronan hardly ever puts his guard up.

There's a pattern there that Lovett desperately doesn't want to think about; one involving him, and walls, and secrets.

Ronan links their fingers and looks at Lovett for several long moments, before saying, “I know I need to get better at telling you these things — with words, out loud —” He smiles a lopsided smile of self-deprecation. “But for now,” he continues, “would it be okay if I just kissed you?”

He looks at Lovett evenly, as if it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask a person who you have basically blanket permission to kiss whenever, and waits until Lovett nods and says, “yeah, of course,” to close the gap between them and kiss him.

They kiss for a long time. Slow; molasses slow and molasses sweet. Ronan's hands migrate to hold on to Lovett's wrists, and that's their only point of contact besides their lips. Lovett thinks briefly about shuffling forward to tangle their legs together, but then thinks, _no, if he wanted that, he'd do it_ , and decides to trust Ronan to be in control.

After however long, — long enough for them to have bruised lips and stubble burn — Ronan slows their kisses to a stop. He's not an open book yet but he's no longer distant, either, so Lovett continues to trust him to know what to do and let's Ronan watch him for several minutes.

“I'm really happy I make you feel safe,” Ronan finally says, keeping his voice low as if to sustain a spell between them. “That means a lot to me.”

Lovett smiles. He leans in for a brief kiss, pulling away without protest when Ronan keeps it brief.

“It's not that you don't make me feel that way, too,” Ronan tells him. He seems to be struggling, as if the right words are beyond his reach right up to the moment he says them. “Feeling safe isn't what I need from you,” he says. “Not at the moment, anyway.” He pulls another wry smile. “I imagine that next year, when I've graduated and have no idea what to do, I'll need you to help me feel safe.”

Lovett laughs softly, thinking about the three of them and the different things they offer each other.

He says, “I’d better get better at being your boyfriend, then.” He kisses Ronan to stop the protest he can see coming and adds, “we should all get better at it if, you're going to still want us with you in a year.”

Ronan rolls his eyes.

“The only person in the world left doubting that is you,” he says, rolling closer to kiss Lovett's protests away again.

~~~

He should have told Ronan during that conversation, or at least at some point during the morning they stayed in bed. He should have taken Ronan up on the offer to stay in bed together all day and watch _Star Wars_ , and at some point he should have turned to Ronan and said—

And that's the problem. He has no idea what to say. If he weren't sure it'd be the deathknell for their relationship, he'd actually consider getting Tim, Ira and his boys in a room and saying, “so, compare notes,” before locking the door on them and leaving.

In the end, he makes Ronan go with him to class, telling Ronan exactly how much tuition a single class costs, more as a way to motivate himself to not skip than because it makes Ronan eager to go. It just makes him laugh, telling Lovett, “I feel like you pick a new hill to die on every day,” and it's not like he's wrong, so Lovett just ignores him and keeps going.

So Lovett doesn't tell him. And when he meets Tommy with coffee after his last class of the day, he doesn't tell him, either.

He knows how this goes. He has a strategy he’s used in moments similar to this several times over, first when he wanted to come out to his closest friends and his family, and later occasionally for the big things his conscience just wouldn’t let him lie by omision about any longer, but for some reason, in this case, he just can’t seem to do it.

He should turn to them as they’re eating a snatched dinner on their way to plans separate from each other that night and tell them that, “hey, Ronan, Tommy. I have something huge to tell you. It’s nothing bad, it’s no big deal, but I need to tell you something tomorrow. Bye!”

But.

It’s not nothing bad, this time, and it is a big deal, and also Tommy knows Lovett’s story about coming out to his parents so he’d see straight through it anyway and start catastrophising over what it could be.

_He’d leap straight to a break up,_ Lovett decides.

Anyway. He doesn’t do it. They eat and kiss goodbye and, when they meet up again that night in Tommy’s room, it’s easy to avoid it all because Ronan’s a little high and just wants to cuddle and boop their noses and Tommy agrees readily, looking smitten, so all Lovett has to do is enjoy it.

_Don’t ruin this,_ he thinks to himself, way too warm and pleasantly cocooned with them. _They need to know, but not right now_.

It’s selfish, and he doesn’t care.

~~~

Come Friday night, Lovett is at another party. This time it’s with Ronan’s friends at the Herald. Ira’s there, because there is no party on or adjacent to campus that he doesn’t get an invite to, and so is Tim because the world is set on fucking with Lovett in particular. Otherwise, he knows a couple of people to say hi to and that’s it, and it's not the best feeling.

Tommy, traitor that he is, is at home watching the game with Favs, so here Lovett is, surrounded by strangers and Ronan and several of his acquaintances, putting on a brave face.

Tommy had told him to stop being a martyr before he'd even left the door. Lovett had flipped him off, kissed him, and left without lowering himself to answer that accusation.

Watching Ronan is its own kind of fun, though, and Lovett finds that, sitting with Ira, he can avoid all the people he doesn't know. Ronan periodically detaches himself from all those people to come possessively touch Lovett’s hip or bring him a drink or laugh at one of his jokes, interject something dry and funnier, and subtly squeeze his hand.

“Do you have him running on magnets?” Tim asks after one of these times, voice dry as he slides onto the arm of Ira's chair.

Lovett flips him off. “Not yet, but I'll look into it,” he says, smiling widely as Tim scoffs as if he isn't charmed.

Ira detaches himself a little later to go flirt with one of the Herald’s hot photographers, saving himself from listening to any more of what has turned into an involved debate about the midterms. Tim's eyes are flashing and he's red in the face and Lovett's presumably not much better, which doesn't explain why Ronan, back for another check in, looks at Lovett with heat in his eyes. He leans into Lovett’s shoulder and winds an arm around Lovett’s waist, pulling them even closer to each other. He doesn’t seem to care that they’re in a room full of people, not all of whom can be people Ronan knows enough to say he trusts.

Tim leers at them, takes Lovetts mouthed “fuck off” in good humor, and does so.

Left on their own, Lovett properly looks at Ronan. He takes in his blown wide eyes and sleepy smile. “Have you had a drink or two, babe?” he asks, smiling back at him involuntarily.

Ronan rolls his eyes at him. “We’re at a party,” he says. He’s not that drunk; has just had enough that he’s noticeably less sober than Lovett, which just makes it Lovett’s duty to unwind himself from Ronan’s arms before anyone comments on it.

“You’re a little drunk,” Lovett explains, gently pushing Ronan down into an armchair. “I don’t want you to out yourself when you’re not fully capable of making that decision of your own free will.”

The crease between Ronan’s eyebrows is pretty cute. The pout is a little spoilt brat, but still, on balance, adorable.

“I’ll give you _free will_ ,” Ronan tells him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him down close to him, getting within a breath of kissing Lovett before stopping, leaning away, and dropping Lovett’s wrist again. He looks away from Lovett’s face, which Lovett can only assume is startled and fond, because _he_ certainly is.

“Sorry,” Ronan says. “I’m being a brat.”

Lovett is still leaning awkwardly over Ronan as he says, “a little. It’s okay; I like it.”

Ronan smiles as if despite himself. “I really want to kiss you,” he adds, sounding more wistful than is good for Lovett’s heart.

Lovett stands straight. “C’mon,” he says, holding his hand out. Ronan takes it readily, letting Lovett pull him to his feet and lead him away from the party. He finds an empty bedroom, mentally apologises to the owner, and turns to find Ronan with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth, looking at Lovett as if to ask “what?” and also say “yes” to whatever Lovett might suggest.

Something flips in Lovett’s stomach. It’s the power, he supposes, clinically. And the trust. It’s heady and hot even as it’s not doing anything for Lovett’s libido.

Ronan pushes the door shut behind him. Leaning back against it, he lets Lovett box him in and kiss him.

Ronan’s hands end up on Lovett’s elbow and shoulder, holding on, but without _touching_ the way Ronan normally does (the way Lovett sometimes has to mentally block out). He lets Lovett take control in a way Lovett doesn’t usually offer or even think about doing. They make out, and at one point Lovett pulls back and tells Ronan, “I wish I could take a picture to show Tommy how _debauched_ you look right now,” and laughs at the affronted sound Ronan makes before getting his lips back on Lovett’s just as soon as he can. Ronan clings to his handholds in Lovett’s top as if trying to permanently ruin it and makes all these noises he doesn’t normally make until someone’s naked or at least touching his dick.

So Lovett thinks its reasonable to move closer. He slides his hands down Ronan’s waist, pushes Ronan's hips up against the door, and swallows Ronan’s groan. Which is… Ronan’s hands still haven’t moved, and actually this is kind of. Fun? Almost fun. Lovett registers that his heart rate is fast and so is his breathing; that he’s hardly calm and that his hands are sweating as they keep Ronan up against the door. He keeps waiting for Ronan to move his hands, to touch him, and thinks even if he touched his neck or his hair, two of Lovett’s favourite places to be touched by Ronan and Tommy, he’d either mentally retreat or jump out of his skin.

But as he pulls back to look at Ronan’s blown wide eyes and well-kissed lips, he feels so in control and suddenly magnanimous that he thinks, _it’s been a while, poor thing,_ and slides his thigh against Ronan’s groin. Ronan stutters out a groan, dropping his forehead to Lovett’s and jerking his hips. Lovett kisses his temple, loosening his grip on Ronan’s hips so he can do what he needs to do, if he wants, but leaving his hands there and his lips on Ronan’s skin because it’s enough to focus on standing still and breathing and holding Ronan up for now.

Ronan makes a sound that’s half-way to a sob, lets go of his hands on Lovett’s shoulder and elbow, and puts his hands on Lovett’s chest instead. Lovett takes a deep breath, closing his eyes, but instead of pull him in or touch, Ronan pushes him back.

He leans back against the door, panting. Looking at Lovett and then the ceiling with wide, tired eyes.

Lovett looks back. Relief fills his lungs and threatens to fill his eyes with some unexpected, pathetic tears. At the same time he realises, _this is getting to feel familiar_.

“I don’t—” Ronan starts. He puts a hand on the handle of the door behind him as if he’s going to go back into the party looking like _that._ “I really don’t want to go back out there having just… you know. Once was enough.” He offers Lovett a smile, presumably refering to their ‘date’ without Tommy when Ronan had got off against Lovett’s thigh and Lovett had pretended to return the favour, feeling guilty and relieved in equal messure.

Lovett hears himself say, “I could blow you.”

Ronan bites his lip. He shakes his head and says, “I’m okay.” He smiles, looking suddenly a lot more sober than he had before. He gives Lovett a sweet, aching smile and adds, “I just wanted to kiss you. Really badly.”

Lovett moves closer. He touches Ronan’s arm, then his wrist, then brings his hand up to kiss it and says, “anytime. I’ll get you a whistle; you can blow it, and I’ll come running and kiss you wherever you are.”

Ronan seems too overwraught or turned on to make any kind of joke about training Lovett up like a puppy, so Lovett makes them for him in his head and files them away for some other time. Ronan steps closer and leans their foreheads together again. Lovett thinks, _I love you_ , and only doesn’t say it because Tommy’s not here and there’s something nagging, in the back of his brain where he’s shoved it, that tells him, _this — not this, but close to this — is too familiar to be coincidence_.

Ronan takes several more minutes to collect himself, letting Lovett help in putting him back together by sorting out his hair and shirt for him, before pecking Lovett on the lips and asking, “I need half an hour, but then can we go home?”

Lovett nods. Ronan leaves. And Lovett says, “what the fuck?” to himself in a stranger’s dark bedroom, unsure how this could possibly have become more complicated but certain, deep in his gut, that it has.

~~~

Back in the party, either Lovett finds Ira or Ira finds Lovett, he’s not completely sure, but either way he ends up telling him, “I haven’t so much as seen Tommy or Ronan’s dicks all week. What the fuck?”

Ira’s eyebrows climb towards his hair. He takes Lovett gently by the shoulders and makes him sit down, then says, “okay, that seems like an important statement, Lovett. You sure you want to talk to me about this?”

Lovett just looks at him.

“Because when I’ve tried to help,” Ira continues. “You’ve made it very clear that you don’t need me to interfere.”

Leaning back on the sofa they’re sat on together, Lovett looks for Ronan and finds him on the other side of the room. He's looking much more together than he’d left him. Lovett notices he's switched to soda.

“I was wrong,” Lovett tells Ira, without making any effort to sound sorry about it. He watches Ronan laugh at someone else’s joke and wallows in the roiling feeling pooling in the middle of his chest. “Interfere away. Do you think they’re bored?” he asks. “Am I not good at it? Did I fuck it up? I just went home for a couple of days, it’s not like I—” He fishes around in his brain for the right words.

“Let them fuck you when you didn’t want it?” Ira asks. His voice is soft even as it cores Lovett from the inside out.

Lovett presses his lips together and blinks hard for a few moments, riding the tide of it — this, the realisation — until he thinks if he opens his mouth he won’t fall apart.

“You think they know?” he asks.

Ira shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “You haven’t given me a lot to go on. There’s lots of reasons a person might not want to show you their dick for a week.”

Lovett scoffs, knowing he’s not hiding how close to tears he is his scoffing sounds suspiciously wet. “ _Ronan_ wanted to show me his dick,” he says, a thread of bitterness creeping into his voice. “He wanted to really badly, and then he didn’t let himself and I don’t know why not.”

Ira gently bumps their shoulders together. “He’s drunk,” he says.

“He’s barely drunk,” Lovett argues.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ira tells him. “Lots of people don’t want to have sex if they’re even a little bit drunk. Either because it isn’t as good for them, or because they know it clouds their judgement and their ability to consent.”

Lovett holds onto his knees, digging his fingers into them. “We’d both drunk a lot the first time I had sex with him,” he says, knowing it’s not a counter argument.

Ira gives him a level, serious look.

“I know,” Lovett tells him, heading him off. He bites his lip. “You’re going to tell me to tell them the truth,” he tells Ira, who laughs at him.

“No shit,” he says.

But then he says, “c’mon, tell me what’s gone on,” and even when he’s pretending he’s not kind, he is. So Lovett tells him everything, and by the time Ronan comes to collect him, Lovett might not feel much steadier, but he has a plan.

~~~

At home, he sends Ronan to brush his teeth first so he can catch Tommy on his own.

He crawls into bed next to him, rucking Tommy’s tshirt up to get his hands on his belly, and says, “hey, how would you feel about having sex tonight?”

Tommy, half-asleep, leans into Lovett’s hands and blinks awake too tired to deny the longing Lovett catches in his expression. He shrugs, once he’s awake enough to remember to play it off, and says, “I don’t know, I’m feeling kind of tired.”

Lovett, a lump in his throat he can’t rationally explain, kisses Tommy to shut him up, then pulls back and says, “Well, I’m not in the mood, so that’s fine, but Ronan is.” Tommy twists so he’s properly on his back and can look up at Lovett, lifting a hand to touch Lovett’s hair. “And if you think you could be in the mood,” Lovett continues. “Then I want you two to have sex.”

Tommy opens his mouth, then closes it.

“Yes or no?” Lovett asks, forcing a smile. It’s not that he’s sad, it’s just there’s a well of anxiety and fear in his stomach and either he finds a solution or he fucks up and gets that fear and anxiety all over Tommy and Ronan.

Tommy looks at him, eyes searching him. “Where would that leave you?” he asks. He keeps his voice hushed.

Lovett doesn’t mention any of the other times one of them hasn’t been there and the other two have had sex. They’re both aware of the tension wrapped around Lovett that says this is something different, even if they haven’t actually had it out.

“I’ll go to my room,” he says.

Ronan opens the door behind him, starting to enter. He slows, folding his arms and tilting his head slightly in Lovett's peripheral vision.

“I’ll watch TV or play _Final Fantasy_ ,” Lovett continues. “And when you’re done, you can come get me or join me, and we’ll cuddle.”

Tommy hesitates. He takes hold of Lovett’s wrist and Lovett wants to tell him, _I know you want me to stay, but_ ** _I_** _don’t. I don’t want to stay._

He doesn’t know where this sudden bravery has come from. It tastes like desperation, where it lives in the back of his throat.

“You’d be okay with that?” Tommy asks.

Lovett nods, fixing his smile when it threatens to wobble. “You can tell me all about it, after,” he tells Tommy. “And in the morning,” he says, looking at Ronan to include him, “we’ll talk.”

Ronan comes further into the room. He doesn’t get on the bed with them but does press his palm to Lovett’s back, between his shoulder blades. “What’s going on?” he asks, voice almost level.

Lovett sits up, pushes himself off the bed, and meets Ronan’s eyes. “You’ve sobered up, right?” he asks, because over the course of their walk home he’d been pretty delighted by tipsy Ronan, but he’d also seen him slowly quieten and start to look a lot more lucid, if tired.

Ronan nods. He’s looking between Lovett and Tommy and there’s not a single dumb brain cell in his beautiful head, so Lovett can see him putting things together through the available context clues, but rather than make him keep doing the work, Lovett says, “you need to get your rocks off,” wiggling his eyebrows, way over the top to make Ronan laugh. “I’m volunteering Tommy to be the one to help you out.”

He takes and squeezes Ronan’s hand, trying to say _it’s okay_ when Ronan blushes and ducks his head.

“I’m fine,” Ronan says, firmly.

On the bed, Tommy sits up against the pillows, pulling his knees up to hug them. He’s not watching them. He’s staring at his knees like they have all the answers, and as fond of Tommy’s knees as Lovett is, he’s pretty sure they’re going to disappoint.

“I didn’t say you weren’t,” Lovett says. “But you do want to get off. And Tommy wants to help.” He squeezes Ronan’s hand again, then pecks him on the lips, smiling when Ronan responds without hesitation. “And I don’t,” he continues, pulling back. He swallows back the anxiety again. “So I would strongly suggest that you two should have sex, and then come cuddle with me and tell me all about it, because I think that would make all of us happy.”

Ronan laughs, the sound somewhere between confused and hollow.

“I can last more than a week without having sex, Lovett,” he says, sounding upset, underneath the laughter, and that’s not what Lovett wanted at all.

Tommy’s the only one sticking to Lovett’s plan.

Frowning, confusion cutting through his anxiety for a moment, Lovett asks, “who said you had to?”

Tommy makes an aborted noise of surprise, maybe, reaching out to touch Lovett's thigh as if just for contact.

Ronan drops his forehead to Lovett’s shoulder. He's laughing, though without humor, and doesn’t reply.

Lovett pulls Ronan in and hugs him tightly, squeezing him against his body as if that’ll get across how much he cares about him, how much he loves him, how he’s not trying to leave him.

And of course that won’t work.

Instead he says, “I love you,” letting that sit between them for a moment, and then adds, “and you’re not getting rid of me until you ask, but I really think you should fuck Tommy and tell me all about it after.” He pulls back from the hug, trying for a grin. “It’ll be hot.”

This time, Ronan’s laugh is a lot closer to something real, if wet.

“You’re impossible,” he tells Lovett. Then, “I love you.”

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Tommy pulls them both, still hugging, in towards him so he can wrap his arms around their hips.

“Me too,” he says. His voice is muffled against their rib cages. “A lot. I love you both a lot.”

Lovett, warmed and held and loved in a way he can barely grasp on to as its happening but is already looking forward to savouring in his memory, smiles, blushing, and can only say, “good. That’s good. Love you, too, Tommy.”

Tommy kisses his side through his tshirt. “Cool,” he says, grinning.

When Tommy speaks next, Ronan’s hand is on the back of Tommy's neck and Lovett still hasn’t quite managed to detangle himself, but is starting to think about how to.

“Would you like to stay?” Tommy asks Lovett’s ribs. “Not to— You could watch.” He looks up at Ronan, sharing a quiet smile. “We really like it when you watch.”

Lovett imagines it, teetering on the verge of giving into temptation. “I like it when I watch,” he admits. But. “Not tonight,” he says. “Just make sure you remember all the details. I like hearing about it, too.”

They make it easy for him to detangle himself after that, letting him go with no fuss and a couple of kisses.

Later, they get into bed with him and kiss him again, tell him they love him again, and he doesn't feel close to jealous. He doesn't feel like he missed out. He luxuriates in them doing more than just touching his hair without ever taking it further and he tells himself to be ready for this to be the only night he gets this. It won’t be enough if it is, but it’ll still be far more than he ever thought he’d get.

He also, secretly, lets himself hope it won't be.

~~~

Tommy makes breakfast with Ronan’s moderately inept help and Lovett goes out for coffee.

On his way back, he practices ten, twenty, an endless number of ways to bring it up and not have it all fall to shit. He walks back slowly, already anticipating their faces when he gets done telling the whole, ugly truth.

He’s not the only one going slow this morning. They all draw it out when he gets back, eating breakfast together slowly, talking about nonsense to keep themselves busy. Tommy and Ronan keep checking in with him and with each other — glances, smiles, touches; all soft and carefully casual. 

Lovett nearly offers to do the dishes to keep from having to start this, getting as far as putting everything into the sink and turning the tap on before facing up to what he’s doing and saying, “okay, sit down. Let’s… sort this out.”

He turns the tap off again with finality, turns, and sits at the kitchen table.

Tommy and Ronan watch him.

Tommy touches his hand as if offering to hold it, and Lovett finds himself curling his hand up, away from him, automatically.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m…”

He doesn’t have the words for what he is. Terrified, probably. Terrified or beyond that, even.

“It’s okay,” Ronan tells him.

And Lovett breaks.

“No,” he says. “It’s not. I should have told you and I didn’t and I pretended because it meant I got to have you both.”

He can’t say anything more because if he does he’s going to cry. He stops. He breathes. He doesn’t look Ronan or Tommy in the eyes.

Ronan moves as if to take Lovett’s hand and Lovett, overdramatic as he sometimes can be, pushes his whole chair back a foot. Ronan takes his hand back.

“Okay,” he says. “I think we need to go back a step.”

“What didn’t you tell us?” Tommy asks.

Lovett crosses his arms. He makes himself take a deep breath, let it out, and then say, “I don’t like sex. I have never enjoyed it.”

There’s a long, slow pause. It feels like it goes on forever.

Finally, Tommy says, “oh.”

“Yeah,” Lovett says. “I’m sorry.”

He pulls his limbs tighter in to his body.

“Never,” Ronan repeats, dully.

Lovett closes his eyes for a moment longer than necessary.

“Yeah,” he says.

“And you didn’t tell us,” Tommy says, like he’s working methodically at a problem even as that problem is sawing off his own arm. “Because you thought you wouldn’t get to have us, if you did.”

Lovett is going to bite his bottom lip bloody if this conversation lasts much longer, he’s pretty sure, chewing at it as he listens to Tommy repeat his own words back to him, newly hearing how inadequate they are. How selfish he's been.

“Yes,” he says. He pulls one of his legs up onto the chair with him and holds it.

Nothing is said or done for several long moments. Like they're in a freeze frame.

“Is there a—”

Ronan had sounded choked as he started to speak and cuts himself off quickly. He's hunched in his chair. Lovett wants Tommy to take his hand or hug him. He wants his own hand to take Ronan's and hold it, too.

He stays where he is.

Ronan tries again. “When did you figure out you didn't like it?”

Lovett's mouth twists without his say so. It's an involuntary reaction meant to protect himself from leaking out his gut reaction, which is either to cry or to be brutally, hurtfully honest. His second impulse is to lie, though, and his third is to run, so he stays still and doesn't even breathe until all of his impulses have been conquered and he can actually think.

He settles on the truth, after all.

“Half-way through the first time I had sex,” he says, avoiding looking directly at Ronan. He still sees his head snap up; knows immediately what his next question is going to be because it's been everyone else’s first, and heads it off. “No,” he says. “I consented. Even if I'd known before, I'd have tried it at some point. Please don't go there; I'm getting sick of explaining that I'm not traumatised.”

Ronan stares at him for a moment, unreadable but expressive in a way Lovett's never seen before. Not blank, but not open. Tommy touches Ronan's knee under the table, maybe in need of comfort himself or maybe, as Lovett chooses to read it, to say: _it's okay. I'll be the steady one for now._

Ronan wets his lips. “I am going to let that go,” he tells Lovett in a very controlled, near-monotone voice. “But I will need us to circle back around to the question of trauma at some point. That's your fair warning.”

Lovett laughs, once and too loudly. “You can be as much of a dog with a bone as you'd like.”

Normally this is where Tommy would try to lighten the atmosphere by joking about Lovett's graciousness, or Ronan's; they're both talking like morons in their own way. He doesn't, this time. Lovett silently acknowledges that thinking of this as _normal_ is just fundamentally wrong. This is unique, and changes everything, and if it hadn't been going to do so, Lovett would have taken this secret to the grave — either his or their relationship’s.

Tommy does, after a momentary pause, ask, “was that the first time you had any kind of idea? Your first time?”

Lovett shrugs. He's never had to say any of this before and hasn't really put it all in order in his own head. He's been afraid of making it real by thinking about it.

Now he says, “I don't know. I guess not, maybe.” He looks down at his hands. “I wasn't a fun kid to be around, so I didn't really have close guy friends to compare myself to during, you know. Puberty. I knew I was different, but I was the only gay guy I knew. I figured maybe it was weird and I… worked a little differently to the guys I grew up with. Honestly it was just the proof I needed to develop a superiority complex.”

Tommy snorts. “Lovett,” he says, which isn't really an objection but is fond, and lets Lovett tentatively smile at him.

Ronan stays silent. Tommy seems to be processing, too, so Lovett fills the space with small things he can offer them in lieu of any kind of real explanation of where things went wrong for him.

“I only kissed one guy in high school,” he tells the table. “Turns out it was a dare and he was sweaty and gross and it didn't really matter at the time if I hated it because I hated him or because I hated _it_ , specifically.”

They still don't stop him, so he keeps going, unable to stop now he's started. It's like he's possessed by a version of himself he tried very hard to turn into a ghost.

“Not that I hate kissing,” he continues. “But you know I don't do well with people in my space and that's part of it, I think, or at least they're complimentary neuroses.”

Tommy doesn't reach to touch, but does reach across the table, palm up, towards him. “Don't self-diagnose,” he tells Lovett. “Please don't talk about yourself like that.”

The pain in his voice, thinly veiled as it is by a forced lightness, stops Lovett from saying, _what, like I'm a freak?_

He decides thinking about school is not going to be helpful, in the long run. Tommy doesn't seem to like the person he ends up being when he thinks about that part of his life too much, and honestly, Lovett has never been a fan himself.

“I've tried a few times here,” he says, then stalls. “I obviously tried with you.”

“You've talked about it with people, too,” Ronan says, in what isn't so much a question as it is a line of questioning. “Favs, at least. You said you were sick of explaining, presumably, that you've never been forced into having sex, so could you explain how it is you didn't talk to _us_ about it? And instead let us make you have sex you did not want, consent or not, for—”

He cuts himself off. He might just be doing the calculation in his head of how long it's been since they got together, but it doesn't matter. Lovett takes advantage.

“You're worth it,” he says. He shrugs, smiling openly at them both while trapping shaky hands between his knees. “If I hadn't realised you'd started letting me off the hook on purpose, I might have let it carry on indefinitely.”

“The _hook—_ ” Ronan starts, choked.

“Ronan,” Tommy says softly. He touches Ronan’s elbow and makes him meet his eyes, it seems like.

Lovett is still rambling. 

“Honestly, I didn’t know what I could possibly give either of you that you weren’t getting from each other,” he says. “And even before that, before you came along,” he says to Ronan, “I didn’t feel… I felt…”

Tommy stands abruptly. Lovett flinches, thinking Tommy’s going to try to touch him again or, in a worst case scenario, leave. Instead, he goes to one of the kitchen drawers, pulls out a flyer for a taco place down the road and a pen advertising a bank none of them use, and sits back at the table. He writes something down, then pushes the flyer over so Lovett and Ronan can read it.

> _\- Make a list for Lovett of all the things he does for me and the reasons why I love him_

It’s the first bullet point in what looks like one of Tommy’s to do lists.

Ronan laughs.

He hides his face behind his hands for a moment, and when he reemerges he gives Tommy a tight smile before looking at Lovett and asking, “was it your first time?”

Lovett could interpret that a couple of different ways, but he’s pretty sure he knows which way Ronan means it.

“Yes,” he says. “But it wasn’t you.”

Ronan watches him impassively. Lovett wonders if he’ll ever see him with his guard down again, which is uncharitable because Ronan has always _tried_ to be open to Lovett, it’s not his fault Lovett keeps hurting him.

“Do you mean that literally?” Ronan asks. “Do you mean that it wasn’t me because it was someone else, or do you mean it wasn’t my fault, but it was me?”

Lovett knows he only has himself to blame for where he is, and what’s being said, and what he has to say next, but he suddenly feels trapped and desperate. It makes him mean. Or, it makes him feel like being mean is the only way to get out of this, though the last thing he wants to do is lash out at Ronan or Tommy.

So he says, “the second one.” He looks at his knee and the grip he has on it, focusing on that and not on what he’s saying. “Except I really mean it,” he tells Ronan. “I’m not protecting you. Yes, you were my first time and yes, Ronan, I didn’t like it, but it’s not anything you did. I tried telling myself it was you the next morning, but you’re perfect. There’s clearly nothing wrong with the way you have sex or with you.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath. “I’m just broken.”

_There should be an open wound in my chest,_ Lovett thinks into the silence that follows. _I should have literally had to break bones to be able to finally say that._

Instead he stews in the silence between them, physically whole.

“Broken,” Ronan says. It’s not a question.

Lovett still says, “yeah.”

Another beat of silence stretches between them. Tommy puts the pen down on the table.

“This makes so much sense,” Ronan says, quietly. Almost to himself, except that he looks to Tommy as if for confirmation. He shifts his attention to Lovett. “When I realised— When we thought we’d realised that you weren’t comfortable and were maybe making yourself do more than you wanted, I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t tell us. Or break up with us completely.” Watching Ronan look at him and redefine him as he does so leaves Lovett feeling three feet tall and miserable. The worst thing is, Ronan doesn’t look any less miserable than Lovett feels. “I get it now,” Ronan finishes.

“I don’t,” Tommy says.

Lovett looks at him. Tommy is holding himself straight as if through strength of will alone, looking between Ronan and him as if hopeful that one of them is going to admit to this being a prank any moment. He’s much smarter than that, though; his eyes, underneath their search, are devastated.

“I’m sorry, Tommy,” Lovett tells him. “I’m really sorry. I just wanted you so much.”

He closes his eyes. A couple of large tears inevitably fall down his cheeks, dripping off his chin and his nose. He’s holding himself so tightly he can’t breathe because if he does, those tears are going to turn into big, ugly sobs.

“ _Please_ can I touch you now?” Tommy asks, much closer than when Lovett closed his eyes.

Lovett nods, and Tommy pulls him into a hug, tucking his head under his chin.

Lovett hears someone’s chair scrape across the floor just before he feels a third hand, much too small to be Tommy’s, touch his back. It’s tentative, but then it presses gently into the space between his shoulder blades as if Ronan wants to say, _I’m here; you’re okay_.

He cries harder for a little while after that, and is still wet around the eyes and disgusting around the nose when Tommy pulls him out of the hug, takes his face in both his hands, and makes Lovett meet his eyes.

“Lovett,” he says. “Do you have any idea how long I loved you before we ever had sex?”

Lovett feels his face crumple.

“Tommy, _don’t_ ,” he tells him.

Tommy shakes his head. He’s smiling, pity and sorrow warring for first place in his eyes, as he says, “sex has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

Lovett makes a broken noise, falling forward into what isn’t a hug and isn’t a kiss, though his forehead is pressed against Tommy’s cheek. He’s just leaning on Tommy and Tommy is holding onto him as Ronan’s hand stays steady on his back.

~~~

Ronan makes fresh coffees for him and Tommy, finds a diet coke for Lovett, and moves the three of them onto the couch with Lovett in the middle so they can lean on each other more comfortably now that Lovett is happy, once again, to be touched by them.

“You said you realised I wasn’t comfortable,” Lovett says after a while. He’s not feeling particularly steady or particularly sure of anything, yet, but Tommy and Ronan keep touching him and haven’t run away. So. He’s starting to process everything that’d been said. Slowly. One step at a time.

Tommy nods.

“Favs said he was surprised we were having sex,” he says. “He hinted you’d had a shitty experience before.”

“Oh,” Lovett says. He leans back against Ronan’s legs, tilting his head so he can see him. “It wasn’t shitty,” he promises him.

Ronan frowns, though, smoothing a hand through Lovett’s hair. “Objectively, maybe not,” Ronan says. “But subjectively it sounds like it was pretty shitty for you. That’s okay.” He offers Lovett a very tentative, very quiet smile. “This isn’t about my ego.”

Tommy leans over to share a sweet kiss with Ronan, and Lovett’s glad it’s the three of them. He always is, but right now he honestly couldn’t see a combination of them that would survive this if Ronan and Tommy didn’t have each other to hold on to while he turns to quicksand underneath their feet.

“I didn’t tell Favs that much,” Lovett tells the ceiling. They look down at him in unison, waiting for him to keep talking. “Between him and Em, though, I guess I can see how he might have had a pretty good idea of what was going on.” He swallows the lump in his throat and soldiers through. “I tried a couple of times — with Tim and with Ira — but I could never make myself actually go through with it. I knew I didn’t like it. I knew, really, that it wasn’t going to be something I was going to learn to like, but it felt like giving up to stop. So I didn’t.”

Ronan’s hand in Lovett’s hair stills. “You went through with it with us,” he says.

Lovett nods. “I wanted to. I wanted you both. I wanted to keep you so badly.”

Ronan nods. He restarts stroking Lovett’s hair, asking, “is that what last night was?”

“Last night was…” Lovett chews his lip. He watches Ronan and Tommy’s faces, seeing curiosity and cautious openness where there had been hurt and walls before, and says, “I realised last night that you’d been trying to keep me, too.” He smiles up at them. “Right?”

Tommy and Ronan share a glance.

“Yeah,” Tommy admits, taking Lovett’s free hand in his.

“Last night, I was honest,” Lovett tells them. Tells his and Tommy’s hands as Ronan’s keep helping him stay steady by slowly, carefully, working their way through his curls.

“When you said you weren’t as into some bits of what we were doing as we were,” Tommy asks. “Was this what you meant?”

Lovett nods.

Tommy, bizarrely, seems to relax. Lovett and Ronan both cut slightly surprised looks his way and he says, “I know this is fucked up, but I’ve been terrified ever since you said that that you’d realised you didn’t really want both of us after all and either you’d break up with us all together or tell us you only wanted Ronan.” He holds up his hands, anticipating, presumably, the even more incredulous looks he gets from both Ronan and Lovett. “I know, you said you loved us both, but it’s just… we can do no sex. That’s easy, in comparison.”

Lovett takes Tommy’s hand back, linking their fingers, and tells him, “you’re an idiot,” and, “I’m sorry I made you feel like that.”

Tommy turns to him. “You’re a dumbass,” he tells him, kissing the inside of his wrist. “And I’m sorry, too, that I made you feel like we had to have sex for me to love you.”

Lovett does the pinch-test as subtly as he can on his thigh, noting, silently, _not a dream. Cool._

“That’s really not your fault,” Lovett says out loud. He can’t remember if he’s already said it. He’s ready to reiterate it as much as he needs to, though, if he really does get to keep them. “My head’s full of scorpians. Is that how it goes?” He looks to Ronan for confirmation.

“ _Full o’ scorpians is my mind_ ,” Ronan says, leaning down to kiss Lovett’s forehead as if to banish them. “Macbeth,” he tells Tommy at his confused look.

“Of course,” Tommy says, rolling his eyes.

“And…” Lovett starts, back to chewing his lip. “You tried to fix it for me.”

Ronan shrugs. “We figured either sex was the problem, and we could fix that, or it wasn’t and we were back at square one.”

“We don’t need to have sex,” Tommy tells him. “We wanted to show you that. We wanted you to know that you don’t need to worry and that if it were us, for whatever reason, you’d never push us, you’d just say _okay_. And so will we.”

Lovett closes his eyes, smiling and trying not to cry again. _This is awful_ , he tells himself, unconvincingly. “That was really… good. It felt good. I didn’t have a clue until last night and I just felt happy and guilt free because it wasn’t my fault.” He pauses to clear his throat, then says, “thank you for, um. Seeing me.”

He sniffs, his throat closing up as he tells himself, _don’t you dare cry again_.

Ronan nearly beats him to it.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says, voice trembling. “I really didn’t need to have sex. I was fine. I was just so worried about you and I missed you and I didn’t know what to do with any of it. The cherry on top was just that I was horny. I could’ve ignored it.” His eyes are conspicously shiny as he looks at Lovett, then Tommy. “And, I’m sorry Tommy, but the best part of last night was coming back to bed with you and telling you what we’d done.”

Tommy laughs, saying, “ _hey_ ,” in a voice that says he doesn’t really disagree.

Lovett says, “the declarations of love come in third place, huh?”

“That’s a good point,” Tommy says, in a reasonable tone. “I think they were my number one. Me and you were two,” he adds, touching Ronan’s shoulder. His eyes crinkle as he smiles at him, and Ronan finally seems like he relaxes as he takes in Tommy’s smile and checks on Lovett to find a matching one.

“Well,” Ronan says, something like a wicked, if watery, grin breaking onto his face. “I have been wanting to rim Tommy since we met, so…”

“Oh, that’s fair,” Lovett admits. “That warrants second place.”

Tommy flushes a bright, fuchsia pink.

“You’re right, though,” Lovett tells Ronan, sobering. “Last night was for that, too; I wanted to show you how it _could_ be. Ideally. A compromise, for all of us, I think?”

Ronan stares at him, lips pressed together, want in his eyes, but it’s Tommy who squeezes Lovett’s hand and says, “Lovett, we meant it. I don’t need it. I’d give up sex in a heartbeat if it meant keeping you.”

_Just like that_ , Lovett thinks wonderingly.

Lovett smiles up at him, almost jealous of how easy it seems to be for Tommy to say as he offers to do something close to what Lovett’s brooded over for years. Maybe because it would be a choice, for Tommy. Maybe because being with the people he loves really would be enough for him.

It doesn’t really matter.

“Me too,” Ronan says, quietly.

Lovett smiles, feeling generous with his heady, if still confusing, mood.

“That’s dumb,” he tells them. “What, you’re shitting on my compromise? It’s taken months of agonising over that to get it to where it is.”

Tommy and Ronan both flinch, just a barely perceptible reaction to the word _agonising_.

“Sorry,” Lovett says. “It wasn’t… _agony_ isn’t the word.”

Ronan offers him a flat smile, emotions open and confusing for Lovett to see. “This is what I meant,” he says. “About circling back around to the trauma question at some point.”

Tommy knocks their elbows together. “Not now, though,” he says.

At Ronan’s nod, they all relax.

Tommy is drawing patterns on Lovett’s palm, watching the way it makes Lovett’s fingers curl and uncurl involuntarily around his own.

“I don’t want you to feel left out,” he tells Lovett’s hand. “If we used your compromise more often. It’s not,” he continues, looking Lovett in the eyes with a burning intensity that takes Lovett aback, as sudden as it appeared. “Me and Ronan, and then you as an extra.”

Lovett nods. He touches Tommy’s cheek to soften the look on his face and is pleased when it happens just as he hopes it will.

“I get that,” he says. “So we won’t let me feel left out. Right?” He looks between them. “I want to plan with you, and be there, sometimes, to watch. And sometimes I want to just hear about it afterwards, and I don’t want to rule out never wanting to, I don’t know. Touch, a bit.” He pauses, wetting his lips when they don’t immediately jump in to say _yes_ or _no_ or the anything, really, which would do.

“That’s…” he starts to say, hesitating. “I mean. If you think it’s worth it.”

“You’re worth it,” Tommy tells him, voice choked with emotion that sounds so large it’s going to burst out of him.

Tommy kisses his palm as Ronan kisses his forehead, laying him out emotionally as he inhales, slowly, and hears himself say, “oh. You think so?”

“Yes,” Ronan says. “Lovett, listen to us,” he continues. “If the options were blue balls until we died or getting to keep you, it’s an obvious choice.” He smiles, soft and relieved and so, so open. He gently tugs at Lovett’s hair. “And I’m looking forward to planning ways to wreck Tommy with you. We’re a good team, you and me.”

Maybe there are other things to say — there definitely are, in fact; things that circle the back reaches of Lovett’s mind like sharks, even now — but all they seem able to say for a while adds up to _I love you_.

And, very quietly, because that’s the only way it’s going to ever get said, Lovett says, “thank you.”

And, “You make me feel whole.”


	9. after

“It's like…” Lovett starts, then hesitates and turns to continue pacing. “It's like if you were in love with me, but still straight.”

He stops where he is. Looks at Favs expectantly.

Favs’ frown is more confused than troubled, but it still makes Lovett feel like he's going to throw up.

“Okay…?” Favs tries.

“So,” Lovett continues. “If you were in love with me, you'd want to spend all your time with me and cuddle with me and look after me and just. Do things I like even if you didn't like them. Right?”

Favs nods, slowly, but going with it. “Sure,” he says. “I've watched so much shitty TV since I met Em, Lovett,” he says, like Lovett wasn't there to listen to every fond rant Favs came home with after one of Em’s marathons. “The things I do for love, you know?”

Lovett holds back from rolling his eyes; lets himself smile instead. It's funny how being in love has made him so much more tolerant of others who are similarly afflicted.

“Okay, so, it's like that,” Lovett continues. “Except you wouldn't want to have sex with me, because you're still straight.”

Favs takes a moment to think that through, frown reappearing as he considers his own hands and then Lovett himself. “I… don't know,” he admits. “If I were in love with you, I think I'd want you to be happy and I'd do whatever I could to make you happy.” He shrugs. “It's just sex.”

Lovett sits down on his bed next to Favs, then lets himself go further and falls back onto it, sinking down. “Yeah,” he says. “I thought that too. But just… think about it for a second. What it'd do to _me_ if I knew or… or found out that you'd only been doing it because I wanted it and, really, you wanted it to end every second it was going on.”

He is predictably choked up and has to clear his throat as he tries very hard to make himself stop thinking any further past that point of no return.

Favs falls back on the bed next to him. “Yeah,” he says. “That must suck.”

They lie together without saying anything for several minutes. Favs seems to have a sixth sense for how long to leave Lovett to fight off leaky emotions, or maybe he's just collecting his thoughts, reprocessing certain memories from the last few months.

“So that's what it's like for you?” Favs asks. “Like being straight, but in love with two guys?”

“Kind of,” Lovett says. He tongues over the indent his teeth have left in his bottom lip, absently telling himself _that was stupid_. “Except I'm not straight, either. And I _am_ gay. Just. When it comes to sex, I’m…” He gestures wildly, finally hitting on the right word and not the one that had hurt Ronan so badly he’d thought they’d never recover: “Nothing.”

Favs nods at the ceiling, presumably to signal his agreement, before finding Lovett's hand and holding onto it with his own. He squeezes it.

“Don't say that again,” he says. “You're not _nothing_ , and if you ever say it again, I'll punch you.”

Lovett laughs, caught between tears and incredulity, and says, “okay, that's fair.”

“It is,” Favs agrees in a magnanimous tone.

He squeezes Lovett’s hand again and says, “thank you for telling me.”

“Of course,” Lovett says. “Well, in some ways, you were the first to know. So. I had to finish telling you what I was too confused to admit two years ago.”

Favs nods.

“I’m glad you’re less confused,” he says. “And happy.” He turns to look at Lovett. “You’re happy, right?” he asks.

Lovett doesn’t have to think about it; he is. It threatens to balloon or leak out of him at least ten times a day. He _chooses_ to think about it because it’s good, because he’s got it so good, and thinking about Tommy and Ronan and the happiness he feels about, near and around them is too good not to luxuriate in at any given opportunity.

“Incandescent,” he says. He grins at Favs and offers, in explanation, “I have to use my words, you see, since I can’t use my body.” He grins as Favs laughs, but means it under the layers of facetiousness. “We’re all trying to be honest more,” he adds.

“Good,” Favs says simply. He nudges Lovett’s shoulder. “I do love you, you know. I don’t really get the difference, but I just wanted to be honest, too.”

Lovett keeps a straight face. “I’m taken, Favs,” he says, just as his bedroom door opens.

“And so are you,” Emily says, smiling, inviting herself in and sitting on the bed next to Lovett. She play-slaps his thigh. “Hands off; you’ve got two perfectly good boyfriends.”

Lovett smiles at her guilelessly, looking at Favs’ suddenly conflicted expression as he looks at Em.

“It’s okay,” he tells Favs. “You can tell her." He glances at his watch. "Later. For now, I need your help, Em.” He braces himself, then gestures to the pile of clothes that is mostly clean. “Please, help.”

She grins. “You’re caving already?” she asks.

Lovett rolls his eyes. “She’s Hollywood royalty,” he complains. “What am I _supposed_ to wear?”

She gives the clothes pile a critical once-over and says, “Favs will lend you something.”

“I will?”

Em ignores Favs, saying, “you have to make a good first impression. Future in-law and all that.”

Lovett’s belly does a little flop, thinking about the conversation the three of them had had two nights ago when Tommy and Ronan had come back to bed with him after showering. _I always wanted to get married_ , Tommy had said, confessional and apologetic. _Fuck the real world_ , Lovett had said. _You want to get married; we’ll get married,_ he’d continued. Ronan had taken both their hands and pressed them to hold on to each other. _Sounds like a plan_ , he’d said, eyes shining.

“Where are you taking her?” Em is asking, going through the pile of clothes and rejecting pairs of pants for the material, colour, fit and make.

Lovett tells her the name of the place — somewhere he’s never been or heard of but which makes her say _oh_ with fondness — and looks back at Favs. Noting the fond expression Favs is watching her with and the fact that Favs still hasn’t dropped Lovett’s hand.

Lovett wants to say to him, _thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you_. He owes that sentiment to a few people: Favs, Em, Dan, Ira, and his mom. Tommy and Ronan, of course, but it’s easy to say to them because he knows they’ll say it back and then fondly mock him for bringing it up. Even Tim, oblivious as he’d been.

To Favs, he wants to say, _I love you too_ , but doesn’t know if he’ll ever find a way to say that to a straight guy that doesn’t make him break out in hives.

“I’m glad I never got around to asking for a new roommate assignment after you threw up on my bed our first night here,” he says instead.

Making Favs laugh is one of the best kinds of victory he knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (((so i realised i needed to resolve the lovett/favs love story, too))) ((((part of me wanted to turn this into commune fic at the last minute. one day.))))
> 
> those of you who stuck with this and commented on every chapter: thank you. you are incredible, and i am so glad i wrote this dumb thing that is the longest single thing i've ever completed or even written. it hurt in places and i feel more whole in others and i'm sure it got needlessly melodramatic at times, and all i can say is thank you for your wonderful comments that made writing my personal therapy out feel very worth it. 
> 
> <3 
> 
> you're all _plums_.

**Author's Note:**

> First thing: posting on a weekly(ish) schedule on Saturdays; chapters alternating between short (2kish) and long (10kish) each time. I have 40k, and I have about another 10k to write, I think. Hopefully that'll be done before I get to that point?? Take your bets now.
> 
> Second: this fic might not be your cup of tea. It is going to deal with a character discovering they're on the ace-spectrum at a time when that was understood and talked about even less than it is now (AVEN was founded in 2001; this fic is set when Lovett et al actually went to college, so most of this fic is set in 2002-3). It is going to deal with the consent issues of someone trying to figure themselves out without the vocabulary or experiences to do it. If that makes you feel shitty, please press the back button. If you need spoilers, please message me on tumblr or twitter or comment here. Please. Writing this has been like therapy for me so a) I don't want it to make anyone feel shitty and b) honestly there’s no hard feelings if everyone in the fandom hates it.
> 
> Side note: Ronan is aged up because shhhh.
> 
> I'm on twitter and tumblr @misprinting, though I'm bad at tumblr and locked on twitter, so maybe send me a message and I'll add you on the latter if you fancy a chat :)


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